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Published in:
2016 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Cadiz 1780–1808: A Corporate Experiment
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Spain’s colonial trade had long been centred on Andalusian Seville and Cadiz, yet the cities’ insurance markets remained undeveloped until the final decades of the eighteenth century. This chapter focuses on the rapid rise and equally sudden demise of the insurance business in Cadiz, from 1780 to 1808. A flurry of mercantile partnerships was established to underwrite the commercial ventures of Spanish traders in the 1780s and 1790s. The escalating insurance losses brought about by the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon, however, caused the bankruptcy of most of these fledgling companies. By the early years of the nineteenth century this new financial sector had largely disappeared.