Swedish Science & Copper in the Making of the Eighteenth-Century French Empire

The copper trade linked the early modern Swedish and French states. Copper mining accelerated alongside growing demand for various products, from luxury goods to instruments.

But the largest application was support for imperial expansion, as copper was used in sugar colonies and was the currency used for the purchase of enslaved Africans. During the eighteenth century, France became a leading client for Swedish copper.

Because they both relied on this key metal, Sweden and France were invested in accumulating metallurgical knowledge, leading chemists to frequently collaborate on the topic of metal chemistry.

In this project, I investigate the resulting entanglements between Swedish copper, the Franco-Swedish chemistry of metals, and the Atlantic trade.At the crossroad of socio-economic history and the history of science, this three-year project makes use of extensive materials produced by French and Swedish actors to explore local, national, and global connections between copper mining, science, and empire.

I propose to take Swedish knowledge and commodities out of a centre-margin narrative, instead examining their agency and the role they played in the emergence of eighteenth-century chemistry.The project makes empirical, methodological, and theoretical contributions to several fields of historical scholarship.

It offers a new commodity history, by focusing on Swedish copper production and the role of Franco-Swedish chemistry in support of state colonial endeavours.