Panton, Leslie & Company

Shipping in the Age of Revolutions

Abstract

Panton, Leslie & Company dominated the deerskin trade throughout the southeastern Spanish borderlands during the Age of Revolutions. Eventually the company obtained massive amounts of property via Spanish land grants and by acquiring tribal grounds as Native American debt to the company grew through the deerskin trade. While the Indian trade that Panton, Leslie & Company engaged in was inextricably connected to the lands the company ultimately acquired in North America, it was equally a maritime venture that crisscrossed the Atlantic world. This paper attempts to orient the deerskin trade in the Southeast through a maritime history perspective by using Panton, Leslie & Company as a case study, including their unique need for coastal vessels, and how seaborne wartime activities impacted the company’s ships that were the key to their deerskin trade operation.