Chapter 17

Authors: Kurt Richter and Nghiem Ta

Title: Pirates, Prizes, and Profits. Cocoa and Early American East Coast Trade.

Colonial American newspapers frequently reported the arrival of ships docking at port. It was commonly reported in the shipping news the name of the ship, captain, ports of call and important or primary cargo. Many of the recorded shipping news reports listed cocoa or chocolate as a part of the cargo on incoming ships. We used shipping news reported in colonial newspapers to piece together cocoa trade flows from production locations to points of importation in Colonial America. We focus primarily on Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

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