“Fortuitous circumstances?” John Owen Smith and the art of nineteenth-century colonial wealth accumulation
Abstract
A former British immigrant, John Owen Smith was one of the nineteenth century
Cape Colony’s most prominent businesspersons. With interests in
guano trading, farming, shipping, property development, auctioneering and
arms trading, he enjoyed a high measure of prosperity and respectability. This
resulted from the deliberate employment of several interlinked and often
innovative wealth accumulation strategies. Through the skillful utilisation of
personal and commercial relationships, Smith became an extremely wealthy
person, a de facto functionary in the colonial network and a member of the
political elite. This status allowed him a significant measure of influence
within the colonial administration. Far from being the result of ‘fortuitous
circumstances’ as claimed by some contemporary newspapers, colonial settler
wealth was rather the result of deliberate social and economic action. After
four decades of wealth accumulation, Smith retired in 1861 and returned to
England, where he died in 1871. His business career serves as a useful lens
into the wealth accumulation activities and strategies of nineteenth-century
colonial entrepreneurs.