Factory (German
"Faktorei", Portuguese
"Feitoria", Dutch
"Factorij") was the English term for the
trading posts system originally established by
Europeans in foreign territories, first within different states of medieval Europe, and later in their
colonial possessions. Factories served simultaneously as
market,
warehouse,
customs, defense and support to the
navigation or
exploration, headquarters or
de facto government of local communities, with the head of the factory being called a
factor. This system was adopted by Americans to exchange goods with local non western societies. The best-known examples in America were those in
Native American Indian territory, created for the purpose of enhancing Indian trade with European colonists and, later, the
United States.
Origin: European medieval Factories (c.1356)
thumb|Main trading routes of the Hanseatic Leaguethumb|Kontor in Antwerp
Although European
colonialism traces its roots to ancient
Carthage - a trading settlement of
Phoenician colonists - and almost every major city of the world once started as a trading post (
Venice,
Naples,
Rotterdam,
New York,
Shanghai, etc), "factories" were a unique institution born in
medieval Europe.
Originally, factories were organizations of European merchants from a state, meeting in a foreign place. These organizations sought to defend their common interests, mainly economic (as well as organized insurance and protection), enabling the maintenance of diplomatic and trade relations within the foreign state where they were set.
The oldest factories were established from 1356 onwards in the main trading centers, usually ports or central hubs that have prospered under the influence of the
Hanseatic League and its
guilds and
kontors. The Hanseatic cities had their own law system and furnished their own protection and mutual aid. The Hanseatic League maintained factories among others in England (Boston, King's Lynn), Norway (Tönsberg) and Finland (Åbo). Later, cities like
Bruges,
Flanders and
Antwerp, actively tried to take over the monopoly of trade from the Hansa, inviting foreign merchants to join in.
Because foreigners were not allowed to buy land in these cities, merchants joined around "factories", like the Portuguese in their Bruges's factory: the Factor(s) and his officers rented the housing and warehouses, arbitrated trade and even managed insurance funds, working both as an association and an embassy, even administering justice within the merchant community.
Portuguese Feitorias (c.1445)
Elmina Castle viewed from the sea in 1668. Notice
European shipping in foreground and
African houses/town shown in left hand corner and in various areas around the fort.
During the territorial and economic expansion of the
age of Discovery the factory was adapted by the
Portuguese and spread throughout from West Africa to Southeast Asia. The Portuguese "feitorias" were mostly fortified trading posts settled in coastal areas, built to centralize and thus dominate the local trade of products with the Portuguese kingdom (and thence to Europe). They served simultaneously as
market,
warehouse, support to the
navigation and
customs and were governed by a "Feitor" (factor) responsible for managing the trade, buying and trading products on behalf of the king and collecting taxes (usually 20%, or the fifth).
The first Portuguese Feitoria overseas was established by
Henry the Navigator in 1445 on the island of
Arguin, off the coast of Mauritania. It was built to attract Muslim traders and monopolize the business in the routes traveled in North Africa. It served as a model to a chain of African Feitorias, being
Elmina Castle the most notorious.
Between the XV-XVI centuries, a chain of about 50
Portuguese forts either housed or protected Feitorias along the coasts of West and East Africa, the Indian Ocean, China, Japan and Brazil. The main Portuguese factories being in
Goa,
Malacca,
Ormuz,
Ternate,
Macau. They were mainly driven by the successive trade of gold in the coast of Guinea, spices of the Indian Ocean and slaves to the new world. But also for local
triangular trade between several territories - like Goa-Macao-Nagasaki - trading products such as sugar, pepper, coconut, timber, horses, grain, feathers from exotic birds Indonesia, precious stones, silks and porcelain from the East, among many other products. In the Indian Ocean the trade in Portuguese factories was enforced and increased by a merchant ship licensing system: the
cartazes.
From the feitorias the products went to Portuguese capital in Goa, then sailing for Portugal were they were landed and traded in
Casa da Índia, which managed also exports to India. There they were sold or exported, sailing to the Royal Portuguese Factory in Antwerp, were they were distributed to Europe.
Easily supplied and defended by sea, the factories worked as independent colonial bases, which provided safety (both for Portuguese and at times to the territories in which they were built, protecting against constant rivalries and piracy) allowing Portugal to dominate trade in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,
establishing a vast empire with scarce human and territorial resources. Over time, the exploration of Feitorias was sometimes licensed to private entrepreneurs, giving rise to some conflict between abusive private interests and local populations, such as in the
Maldives.
Dutch Factorij and other European Factories (1600s)
thumb|Dutch V.O.C. factory in Hugli-Chuchura, Bengal, in 1665
The establishment of Factories by other European powers along the trade routes explored by Portugal and Spain started in 1600's, first by
Dutch and then by
England. They went on to establish in conquered Portuguese Feitorias and further enclaves, as they explored the coasts of Africa, Arabia, India and South East Asia, in search of the source of the lucrative
spice trade.
Factories were then explored by
Chartered companies like the
Dutch East India Company (VOC) founded in 1602 and the
Dutch West India Company (WIC), founded in 1621. These factories provided for the exchange of products between European companies and local populations and, increasingly, the colonies that often started as a factory and a few warehouses. Usually these factories had larger warehouses to fit the products resulting from the increasing agricultural development of colonies, which had boosted in the
New World with the
Atlantic slave trade.
In these factories the products were checked and got their first rough treatment, being weighed and packaged to suit for the long sea voyage. In particular, spices,
cocoa,
tea,
tobacco,
coffee,
sugar,
porcelain and
fur were well protected against the salty sea air and against deterioration. The factor was there, as the representative of the trading partners in all matters, reporting to the headquarters and being responsible for the products logistics (proper storage and shipping). Given that information took a long time to reach the company headquarters, this was dependent on an absolute trust.
Some of the Dutch factories were in
Cape Town (South Africa),
Calicut,
Ambon,
Coromandel Coast,
Colombo (city),
Formosa,
Canton,
Mocha (Yemen) and
Fort Oranje (New York),
Dejima, from 1641 to 1859 on an artificial island in the port of Nagasaki, Japan.
North American factories (1697 to 1822)
The factory trading post building at
Fort Clark on the left which in turn was within a walled fort.
The American factories often played a strategic role as well, sometimes operating as forts, providing a degree of protection for Indians and allied colonists from enemy Indians and colonists. Later factories established by the United States often served to protect Indians from American citizens.
York Factory was founded by the
chartered Hudson's Bay Company in 1697. For a longtime it was headquarters of the company, that was once the
de facto government in parts of North America, like
Rupert's Land, before European-based colonies and nation states existed. It controlled the
fur trade throughout much of British-controlled North America for several centuries, undertaking early exploration. Its traders and trappers forged early relationships with many groups of First Nations/Native Americans and a network of trading posts formed the nucleus for later official authority in many areas of Western Canada and the United States.
The early coastal factory model contrasted with the system of the French, who established an extensive system of inland posts and sent traders to live among the tribes of the region. After war broke out in Europe between France and England in the 1680s, the two nations regularly sent expeditions to raid and capture each other's fur trading posts. In March 1686, the French sent a raiding party under Chevalier des Troyes over 1300 km (800 miles) to capture the company's posts along James Bay. The French appointed
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who had shown extreme heroism during the raids, as commander of the company's captured posts. In 1697, d'Iberville commanded a French naval raid on the company's headquarters at York Factory. On the way to the fort, he defeated three ships of the Royal Navy in the
Battle of the Bay, the largest naval battle in the history of the North American Arctic. D'Iberville's depleted French force captured York Factory by a ruse in which they laid siege to fort while pretending to be a much larger army. York Factory changed hands several times in the next decade. It was finally ceded permanently to what was by then the
Kingdom of Great Britain (following the union of Scotland and England in 1707) in the 1713
Treaty of Utrecht. After the treaty, the company rebuilt
York Factory as a brick
star fort at the mouth of the nearby
Hayes River, its present location.
The United States government sanctioned a factory system from 1796 to 1822, with factories scattered through the mostly territorial portion of the country.
The factories were officially intended through a series of legislation called the
Indian Intercourse Acts to protect
Native Americans from exploitation. However, in practice numerous tribes conceded extensive territory in exchange for the trading posts as happened in the
Treaty of Fort Clark in which the
Osage Nation ceded most of
Missouri at
Fort Clark.
Usually a
blacksmith was assigned to the factory to repair utensils and build or maintain plows. Frequently the factories had some sort of milling operation associated with them.
The factories marked the United States' attempt to continue a process originally pioneered by the
French and then by the
Spanish to officially license the fur trade in
Upper Louisiana.
Factories were frequently referred to as "
forts" and often had numerous unofficial names. Legislation was often passed calling for military
garrisons at the fort but their de facto purpose was a trading post.
Examples
York Factory was founded by the
Hudson's Bay Company in 1697.
In the United States factories under the
Superintendent of Indian Trade:
Natchitoches—Sulphur Fork
(Hendrik van Schuylenburgh, 1665).jpg/){kind=link}