Chapter 18

Authors: Kurt Richter and Nghiem Ta

Title: How Much Is That Cocoa In The Window?
Cocoa's Position in the Early American Marketplace.

Colonial American newspapers reported the current market prices for important commodities in the major port cities. Newspapers based in major port cities like New York, Boston or Philadelphia reported the current prices in their respective ports. Colonial newspapers in other cities reported the prices in the major port cities. We have used the Colonial prices reported in the newspapers to reconstruct the prices for cocoa and chocolate in the major port cities of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In addition we have selected port cities in the Southern Colonies, London, Paris and Madrid. In this essay we identified the seasonal price changes of cocoa and chocolate in Colonial America cities, the price changes between major Colonial ports, the difference between the Colonies and European ports, and estimated the price for chocolate products in Colonial America.

Previous | Next
Back to Chapter Overview page