Trade Networks in the Second Half of the 19th Century: Antioquean Traders and Foreign Firms

Colombia connected to the international trade through goods import and export during the second half of the 19th century. Regular communications among wholesale importers and foreign firms show they were well connected and that the latter offered advantages to distant customers. The purpose of this article is to analyze how Uribe Ruiz local traders' contact networks, Rionegro (Antioquia, Colombia), enabled the connection of the country to international economies. This analysis responds the following questions through a case study: How were trade relations built with foreign firms? Who made up an international trade network and what products were traded? How were those relations strengthened? The methodology, of a quantitative nature, is based on the analysis of a wide empirical base mainly made up by Uribe Ruiz family epistolary correspondence. The reconstruction of the network enabled the identification of foreign firms, the type of products they offered, and how they established trade relations in distant markets. Unlike most Colombian trade networks studies that explore internal relations, the use of correspondence enabled this study to determine the size of the international network and its agents.