Merchants, the "Daig" and the World (17th–19th Centuries) — a part of the book Basel as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Part C covers the period from the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the nineteenth, when Basel was a city of merchants and manufacturers. Its economy was dominated by the silk ribbon industry, organised by merchant-manufacturers who put out work to rural weavers and sold their ribbons throughout Europe and beyond. Its society was dominated by a small number of interrelated families, known in Basel as the Daig, the dough, who combined trade, industry, public office and, increasingly, finance. Its merchants traded with France, Germany, the Netherlands, England, Italy and, through the Atlantic economy, with the Americas and Africa. Some of them profited from the slave trade and the plantation economy. And in 1815, the city became the seat of a missionary society whose trading company would play a significant role in the economy of the Gold Coast and of southern India.
This period saw the emergence of banking in Basel. The merchant houses that financed the ribbon industry, handled bills of exchange and invested their surplus capital in foreign public debt and commercial ventures gradually became banks. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Basel had a group of private banks that would found, in 1872, the Basler Bankverein, one of the two institutions that later formed UBS. Part C traces the path from the merchant house to the bank and examines the social, moral and international dimensions of the wealth that the Basel merchants accumulated.
Chapter I describes the silk ribbon industry and the putting-out system. Chapter II examines the patrician families of the Daig and their culture of discretion. Chapter III follows the transition from trade credit to banking. Chapter IV turns to Basel's involvement in the Atlantic economy, including the slave trade. Chapter V is devoted to the Basel Mission and its trading company, which link Basel with Africa and form a counterpart to the Africa part of the companion volume on Geneva.
This part belongs to Basel as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
The Silk Ribbon Manufacturers and the Putting-Out System — conclusion
The silk ribbon industry was the leading industry of Basel from the late seventeenth century to the late nineteenth. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe leading industry of Basel
For almost two centuries, from the late seventeenth century to the late nineteenth, the silk ribbon industry was the leading industry of Basel. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe chain of production
The production of a silk ribbon involved a long chain of operations, each requiring specific skills and each adding value to the material. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe putting-out system
The putting-out system, known in German as the Verlagssystem, was the dominant form of industrial organisation in Europe before the factory. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe weavers and their dependence
The rural weavers, the Posamenter, lived in a condition of economic dependence that historians have described in various terms. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldMarkets and fashion
The market for silk ribbons was a market of fashion. Ribbons were worn on hats, dresses, bonnets, shoes and in the hair; they decorated uniforms, military insignia and ceremonial garments; Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe financing of the ribbon industry
Since the ribbon industry required large amounts of capital, its financing is the key to understanding the emergence of banking in Basel. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe palaces of the ribbon lords
The wealth of the ribbon merchants is visible in the architecture of Basel. In the eighteenth century, the leading families built town houses of a splendour that contrasted with the modesty that the… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldDyes, chemistry and the path to the chemical industry
The ribbon industry's need for dyes created a trade and a craft that would prepare the most important industry of modern Basel. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe books of a ribbon house
The account books of the Basel ribbon houses, several of which are preserved in the State Archives and in the Swiss Economic Archives in Basel, show the complexity of the business. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Paris fashion system and the Basel designers
The dependence of the Basel ribbon industry on fashion made the design of ribbons a central activity. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldWages, prices and the ribbon cycle
The income of the weavers and the profits of the merchants depended on a cycle that combined the seasons of fashion, the harvests of silk and the conditions of the export markets. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCrises and competition
The history of the Basel ribbon industry was punctuated by crises. The wars of the French Revolution and of Napoleon disrupted trade with France and the rest of Europe. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe merchants' directorate and the Basel post
The merchants of Basel organised themselves not only in the guilds but also in a body that represented their common commercial interests. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe raw silk trade and its risks
The supply of raw silk was the first link in the chain of the ribbon industry and one of its principal sources of risk. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPatterns, piracy and the protection of design
The success of a ribbon merchant depended on his patterns. A new design, a new combination of colours or a new weave could create a fashion and bring large orders. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldNapoleon, the Continental System and the border trade
The wars of the French Revolution and of Napoleon had profound effects on the trade of Basel. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldFrom home looms to factories
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the ribbon industry of Basel gradually moved from home work to factories. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe ribbon industry and the financial centre
The silk ribbon industry was the matrix of the Basel financial centre. It created the capital from which the private banks of Basel emerged. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldHome work, platform work and the regulation of dependent labour
The putting-out system raises a question that has returned in the twenty-first century in a new form: the legal status of workers who are formally independent but economically dependent on a single… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPatrician Families and the Culture of Discretion — conclusion
The Daig, the old patrician families of Basel, formed a social elite of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, scholars and public servants, connected by marriage and kinship over centuries. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe dough of Basel
In Basel, the old families that have shaped the city for centuries are known collectively as the Daig, a word of the Basel dialect that means dough. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldKinship and marriage
The families of the Daig were connected by marriage to a degree that is difficult to imagine today. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe management of family wealth
The families of the Daig accumulated wealth over generations and developed practices for its management and transmission. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldGuardianship and the administration of other people's property
The management of other people's property was a regular task of the Basel elite long before it became the business of banks. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPublic office and civic duty
The families of the Daig dominated the government of Basel until the democratisation of the nineteenth century. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Enlightenment in Basel: Isaak Iselin
The eighteenth century brought the ideas of the Enlightenment to Basel, where one of its most important representatives in Switzerland was a Basel patrician. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPietism and the Christentumsgesellschaft
Alongside the rational Enlightenment of Iselin, Basel was a centre of Pietism, the movement of religious renewal that emphasised personal conversion, devotion, Bible reading and practical piety. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCountry estates and the landscape of wealth
The families of the Daig invested a part of their wealth in country estates in the surroundings of the city. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldWomen of the Daig
The history of the Daig is usually written as a history of men: merchants, magistrates, professors and pastors. The women of the patrician families played a role that was less visible but essential. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Daig and the federal state
The creation of the Swiss federal state in 1848 changed the political framework in which the Daig operated. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldClosed networks and the economics of trust
The kinship network of the Daig raises a question that economists and sociologists have studied in many contexts: the role of closed networks in the organisation of trade and finance. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe culture of discretion
The most characteristic feature of the Daig is its culture of discretion. The old families of Basel are known for their understatement. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Helvetic Revolution and the end of the old order
The old order of Basel, with its guild constitution and its patrician government, came to an end in 1798 with the Helvetic Revolution. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe architecture of discretion
The old town of Basel, on the hill of the Minster and along the streets that descend to the Rhine and the market square, is a landscape shaped by the Daig. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldFasnacht and the social life of the city
The social life of the Daig was, and remains, bound up with the institutions of the city: the guilds, which continue to exist as social corporations; Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPhilanthropy: Christoph Merian and the civic foundations
A significant part of the wealth of the Daig was given to the city. The tradition of civic philanthropy, which goes back to the medieval foundations and to the Erasmus foundation of 1536, reached a… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldJacob Burckhardt and the Basel mind
The intellectual culture of the Daig produced, in the nineteenth century, one of the great historians of Europe. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Daig today
The Daig still exists, although its role has changed. The democratisation of politics in the nineteenth century, the growth of the city, the arrival of new populations and the transformation of the… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldFamily ownership in the modern Basel economy
The tradition of family ownership, which the Daig embodied, remains a feature of the modern Basel economy. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldDiscretion and the modern law of privacy
The culture of discretion of the Daig has its counterpart in the modern law of privacy. The Swiss Federal Constitution guarantees the right to privacy, including the protection of personal data. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldFrom Trade Credit to Banking: the Merchant-Banking Houses — conclusion
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the merchant houses of Basel became banks. As the municipal exchange declined, private houses took over its functions. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe merchant becomes a banker
There is no single date at which banking began in Basel. The medieval money changers of the Hausgenossen, the municipal exchange of 1504, the printers who extended and received credit, the ribbon… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe decline of the municipal exchange
The municipal exchange, the Stadtwechsel, founded in 1504, served the city and its merchants for more than two centuries. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldBasel capital abroad
In the eighteenth century, the merchants and patricians of Basel accumulated more capital than they could invest profitably in the city and its region. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe commission and forwarding business
Basel's position at the junction of routes between France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy made it a centre of the commission and forwarding business. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe first private banks
By the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, several Basel houses had become primarily banking houses. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCorrespondents: the network of the Basel houses
A private bank of the early nineteenth century was only as good as its correspondents. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldBills of exchange and the discount business
The discounting of bills of exchange was the core business of the early Basel private banks and the principal instrument of short-term credit for the merchants and manufacturers of the city. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldBanknotes before the National Bank
Before the foundation of the Swiss National Bank in 1907, banknotes in Switzerland were issued by private and cantonal banks. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldMoney in the age of revolution: the franc and the cantonal coinages
The Helvetic Republic of 1798 introduced, for the first time, a single Swiss currency: the Swiss franc, divided into ten batzen or one hundred rappen. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Basel stock exchange
The trade in securities in Basel was organised informally for most of the nineteenth century, in the offices of the private banks and in meetings of brokers and merchants. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe legal form of the private bank
The early private banks were organised as partnerships, in which the partners were personally and without limit liable for the debts of the firm. This unlimited liability was a signal of trust. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe partnership agreement: governance of a family bank
The governance of a family bank was defined by the partnership agreement, the contract by which the partners regulated their relationship. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPrivate banks and the political order after 1833
The division of the canton of Basel in 1833, which Part D examines, had consequences for the private banks of the city. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe savings banks and the broader public
The private banks of Basel served the elite: merchants, manufacturers, patrician families and institutions. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCredit information and the business of reputation
A bank that lends or discounts bills needs information about the creditworthiness of its borrowers. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe taxation of wealth in the nineteenth century
The wealth that the merchants and bankers of Basel accumulated was subject to taxation. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldLending to the public sector
The private banks of Basel also lent to public bodies: the canton, the city, the municipalities of the region and, increasingly, other Swiss cantons and foreign states. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe culture of risk
The private bankers of Basel developed a culture of risk that reflected their situation. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPrivate wealth management as a service
The management of family wealth, which the patricians of Basel had long practised for themselves and their relatives, became in the nineteenth century a service that the private banks offered to… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldTowards the railway age
In the 1840s and 1850s, a new capital need appeared that exceeded the resources of individual private banks: the railways. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldBasel and the Atlantic Economy: Colonial Entanglements — conclusion
Switzerland had no colonies, but Swiss merchants, investors, manufacturers, soldiers and officials participated in the colonial economy and the Atlantic slave trade. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldA landlocked city in a maritime world
Switzerland never had colonies, a navy or a port on the ocean. For a long time, this fact was taken to mean that Switzerland had no part in the colonial history of Europe, including the Atlantic… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe colonial goods trade
The most widespread form of Basel's involvement in the colonial economy was the trade in colonial goods. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldSpices, sugar and the Basel household
The colonial trade shaped the daily life of Basel in ways that are still visible. The Basler Läckerli, the spiced honey biscuits that are one of the culinary specialities of the city, are made with… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe geography of the Atlantic trade
The Atlantic slave trade is often described as a triangular trade. Ships left European ports, among them Nantes, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Liverpool, Bristol, London and Amsterdam, loaded with trade… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldChristoph Burckhardt & Cie and the slave trade from Nantes
The most thoroughly documented case of direct participation of a Basel merchant house in the Atlantic slave trade is that of Christoph Burckhardt & Cie. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldInsurance, credit and the dehumanisation of persons
The financing of the slave trade relied on the instruments of eighteenth-century finance, which treated enslaved people as property. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldPlantation loans and the securitisation of slavery
In the second half of the eighteenth century, Dutch bankers developed a financial instrument that allowed investors throughout Europe to lend to the planters of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean,… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldSaint-Domingue and the price of freedom
The French colony of Saint-Domingue, the western part of the island of Hispaniola, was in the late eighteenth century the richest colony in the world, producing a large share of the sugar and coffee… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCompensation for the owners
When Britain abolished slavery in its colonies in 1833, it paid compensation to the slave owners. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldArchives and historical responsibility
The history of Basel's involvement in the slave trade could be written because the archives of the merchant houses survived. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldIndiennes: Swiss textiles and the African trade
The slave trade depended on trade goods that were exchanged for enslaved people on the coast of West Africa. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldSwiss servants of the colonial powers
Swiss citizens also served the colonial powers directly. Swiss officers and soldiers served in the armies of France, the Netherlands, Britain and other powers, some of them in the colonies. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCotton and the Swiss textile industry
The cotton industry, which became the leading industry of eastern Switzerland in the nineteenth century, depended on raw cotton produced in large part by enslaved labour in the southern United… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldSwiss capital and the chartered companies
The great chartered trading companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch West India Company, the English East India Company, the Royal African… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldSwiss consuls and merchant networks overseas
In the nineteenth century, the Swiss Confederation, which had no colonies and a very limited diplomatic service, relied on honorary consuls, usually Swiss merchants established abroad, to represent… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldAbolition and its Swiss echoes
The movement for the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery, which began in England in the 1780s and achieved the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807 and of slavery in the British… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldRemembering the colonial past in Basel
Since the early 2000s, the colonial entanglements of Switzerland have become a subject of research and public debate. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldColonial collections in the museums of Basel
The colonial past of Basel is also present in its museums. The Museum der Kulturen Basel, founded in the nineteenth century and today one of the largest ethnographic museums in Europe, holds hundreds… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldSupply chains and the modern law of responsibility
The history of Basel's colonial entanglements has a direct relevance to a question that occupies the modern law of business: the responsibility of companies and financial institutions for the effects… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldHuman rights due diligence in Swiss banking today
For Swiss banks and asset managers, the questions raised by the colonial history are part of the modern framework of responsible finance. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldA city that looks at its own sources of wealth
The willingness of Basel institutions to examine the colonial origins of their wealth has grown since the early 2000s. Foundations have commissioned studies of the fortunes on which they rest. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Basel Mission and the Basel Mission Trading Company — conclusion
The Basel Mission, founded in 1815 by Pietist citizens of Basel, became one of the largest Protestant missionary societies of the nineteenth century, with missions in the Gold Coast, southern India,… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldA missionary society in a merchant city
In 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna and of the final defeat of Napoleon, a group of Pietist citizens of Basel founded a missionary society. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe founders and their world
The Basel Mission was founded by members of the Pietist network that had formed around the German Christentumsgesellschaft, which Chapter II described. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Gold Coast mission
In 1828, the Basel Mission sent its first missionaries to the Gold Coast, the stretch of the West African coast between the Ivory Coast and the Slave Coast, where European powers had maintained forts… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe mission in India
In 1834, the Basel Mission began work on the Malabar coast of southwestern India, in the region of Mangalore, then part of the British Madras Presidency. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldCameroon and China
The Basel Mission extended its work beyond the Gold Coast and India. In 1847, it began work in southern China, in the Hakka-speaking regions of Guangdong province, where it founded churches, schools… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldEducation as investment
The mission schools were the most lasting contribution of the Basel Mission to the societies in which it worked. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe finances of the mission
As a large organisation, the Basel Mission needed careful management of its finances. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe mission presses
The Basel Mission continued, in its mission fields, the printing tradition of its home city. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldChristianity and commerce: the founding of the trading company
The economic activities of the mission raised questions of principle and of management. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe trading company in the Gold Coast
In the Gold Coast, the trading company opened stores in Christiansborg, Accra and other towns, and later in the interior. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe cocoa revolution
The most important economic transformation in which the Basel Mission and its trading company participated was the rise of the cocoa economy in the Gold Coast. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe First World War and the seizure of the company
The First World War brought a crisis for the Basel Mission and its trading company. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldThe Basel Trading Company in the twentieth century
The Basler Handelsgesellschaft continued to operate in West Africa through the twentieth century. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldFrom Christian commerce to impact investment
The idea that commerce could serve a moral purpose, which the Basel Mission Trading Company embodied, has a modern successor in the movement for impact investment and responsible business. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldMission 21 and the archives of the mission
In 2001, the Basel Mission merged with other missionary organisations to form Mission 21, the Protestant mission of Basel, which continues the work of the Basel Mission in partnership with churches… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldBasel, Geneva and Africa
The companion volume on Geneva devotes a part to Geneva as an African business hub, examining the commodity trading companies, the banks, the international organisations and the francophone networks… Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldGhana and Switzerland today: cocoa, gold and responsibility
The economic relationship between Switzerland and Ghana, which the Basel Mission Trading Company inaugurated in the nineteenth century, has taken new forms. Read more Basel · Merchants, the "Daig" and the WorldFrom mission to development cooperation
The Swiss federal development cooperation, organised since 1961 and today conducted by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, has taken over… Read more