Economy & TradeThe 1880s

Economy & Trade in the 1880s

Every event in the Terralore archive tagged economy and trade — trade, currency, industry and resources, narrowed to the 1880s — 7 of them, drawn from 7 nations, running from 1880 to 1886. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.

Events
7
Nations
7
Earliest
1880
Latest
1886
North America
3
Oceania
2
Africa
1
South America
1

Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.

  1. South America

    Ecuador

    The cacao boom

    Ecuador becomes the world's leading cacao exporter, enriching the coastal elite of Guayaquil and shifting wealth and power toward the coast.

    Era: Cacao, Liberals and Bananas

    Sources: History of Ecuador · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  2. Oceania

    New Caledonia

    Nickel mining begins

    The Société Le Nickel began industrial exploitation of New Caledonia's nickel — among the largest deposits in the world — making mining the economic engine that drew settlers and accelerated Kanak dispossession.

    Era: Annexation, the Bagne and Nickel

    Sources: New Caledonia · Encyclopaedia Britannica, New Caledonia — History · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  3. North America

    Panama

    French canal attempt fails

    Ferdinand de Lesseps's company begins a sea-level canal but is defeated by disease and cost, collapsing in financial scandal.

    Era: A Province of Colombia

    Sources: Building the Panama Canal, 1903-1914 · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Panama · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  4. North America

    El Salvador

    Communal lands abolished

    Laws abolishing communal and Indigenous landholding open the highlands to coffee estates, dispossessing peasant communities and entrenching a landed oligarchy.

    Era: Independence and the Coffee Republic

    Sources: El Salvador: A coffee republic · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  5. Oceania

    New Zealand

    First refrigerated meat shipment

    The first cargo of frozen meat sailed from New Zealand to Britain, launching the refrigerated export trade in meat and dairy that would underpin the country's economy for a century.

    Era: Colony, women's suffrage, and Dominion

    Sources: New Zealand (country) · Encyclopaedia Britannica

  6. North America

    Canada

    Canadian Pacific Railway completed

    The driving of the last spike at Craigellachie completed the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway, binding the new nation together and fulfilling a promise made to British Columbia at Confederation.

    Era: Confederation and nation-building across the continent

    Sources: Canada · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Confederation · The Canadian Encyclopedia

  7. Africa

    South Africa

    Gold found on the Witwatersrand

    The discovery of the world's largest goldfield on the Witwatersrand created Johannesburg, transformed the Transvaal's wealth, and entrenched a segregated migrant-labour system.

    Era: Diamonds, gold, the South African War and Union

    Sources: South Africa: Diamonds, gold and imperialist intervention (1870–1902) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Grade 8 – Topic 2 – The Mineral Revolution in South Africa · South African History Online