Entrepreneurs in the nineteenth century, during the reign of Dom Miguel: the successful example of Elias Bensaúde

Abstract

The name Bensaúde has been connected to the history of commerce in the Azores archipelago for more than one hundred and fifty years. Salomão, Elias and José are considered the founders of the important Bensaúde business empire. In this article, the author studies the entrepreneurial career of just one of the brothers, Elias Bensaúde, the man who dominated the trade of the Portuguese islands. He used the trading networks that were already organized, and profited from the links that had been established with British commercial agents. Moreover, he benefited from the successive price rises of oranges on the British market. The durability of his firm, and the distance he progressively put between himself and his competitors, are explained by various factors. Firstly, his business, which was on the islands of S. Miguel, Faial, and Terceira as well as in Lisbon, Manchester, and London, was large. Secondly, his investments were diverse: shops selling cloth and trinkets, grocery shops, the tobacco company Regalia de Lisboa, the purchase of urban properties, and speculative ventures in agriculture.