The present paper explores a historical case of a location where a group of merchant families established powerful positions over many generations, involving both the international trade of fine wine and human beings sold as slaves. These families lived in Bordeaux, one of the largest trading centers for trade of enslaved humans in the world in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These trading families were concentrated in a few quarters of the city, and most of the leading merchants were active in both lines of trade. More importantly, this paper shows that three of the key trading institutions, namely practices defining ‘product quality’, product classes and how prices were set, were remarkably similar in both fields of trade. This, in turn, facilitated a smooth and successful substitution of trade from enslaved humans into fine wine when abolition was imposed in the early 1800s. Overall, a story of the darker side of agglomerations is revealed. This study facilitates a new theoretical understanding of how wealth and prosperity can be secured over long time periods, through transposition of institutions between fields, and driven by forces of proximity.

中文翻译：

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集聚、持续财富和贸易机构转移的阴暗面——以18、19世纪的波尔多为例

本文探讨了一个历史案例，该地区的一群商人家族在几代人中建立了强大的地位，涉及美酒的国际贸易和作为奴隶出售的人类。这些家庭居住在波尔多，这是 18 世纪末和 19 世纪初世界上最大的奴隶贸易中心之一。这些贸易家族集中在城市的几个街区，大多数领先的商人都活跃在这两个行业中。更重要的是，本文表明三个主要贸易机构，即定义“产品质量”、产品类别和定价方式的实践，在两个贸易领域都非常相似。这反过来，在 1800 年代初期实行废除时，促进了从奴隶贸易到美酒的顺利和成功的替代。总的来说，揭示了一个关于聚集的黑暗面的故事。这项研究促进了对财富和繁荣如何通过领域之间的转换以及由邻近力量驱动的长期确保财富和繁荣的新理论理解。