Information on Loughborough

Exporting ponchos to a land 'where the devil lost his poncho'

Posted on 14/08/2009
University of Leicester

We may think of ponchos as quintessentially South American, but new research by a University of Leicester historian reveals that there was a time when a great deal of the ponchos worn in the southern end of South America were actually made in Britain.

A study by Dr Manuel Llorca, recently reported in the journal Business History, shows that from the 1810s, following the collapse of the Spanish-American Empire and the trade restrictions it imposed, British exporters began to open mercantile houses in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Valparaiso and could judge what goods would sell well in those regions.

The Latin American market quickly became as important to British merchants as its North American counterpart, buying increasing quantities of British textiles and among them, ponchos.

Not that the British had it all their own way. The local people proved to be demanding customers, a local merchant pointing out that the