In the meantime, many people have told me that they would like to read my Master’s thesis (technically, it’s a Research Paper though), and I have always thought that I’d rather publish it on the Web in the hope that one day it might be useful to someone. If you’re a historian and you read this, feel free to contact me. I love to talk about history and I’d love the share my limited research with you.

My paper was written in the spring of 2007 under the supervision of Professors Nicholas Dew and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert and was entitled Intercolonial Trade within the French Atlantic World, 1708 – 1763. Frankly, it was a fascinating and under-studied topic that allowed me to combine my interests for Economic History and the History of the Atlantic World during the era of European Colonialism.

Here’s a pdf version of my paper: Intercolonial Trade within the French Atlantic World, 1708 – 1763

And a summary for those too lazy to read it (it’s OK, you don’t have to pretend to want to read a 50-page paper just to be my friend):

Between 1708 and 1763, metropolitan officials tried to promote a system of intercolonial commerce between French possessions in the Americas because of France’s inability to provide sufficient supplies to its colonies. The goal of this policy was to create a self-sufficient economic sphere within the French Atlantic World. While legal intercolonial trade rose to significant levels during the eighteenth century, it was overshadowed by the great quantitative superiority of illegal contraband commerce between British and French colonies. Because of a variety of structural factors, as well as a series of inefficient policies, illegal commerce was more profitable for French colonies than legitimate intercolonial trade, and this eventually led to failure of the ‘Colbertist’ economic system that had prevailed in the colonies since the 1670s.