Société française pour le commerce avec l'Outre-mer

The Société française pour le commerce avec l'Outre-mer (SFCO) is a French investment company, formerly a trading company. It has its origins in the Gradis merchant house, established in 1685 and headed by members of the Gradis family. The Gradis family was Jewish, and had probably moved to Bordeaux from Portugal around 1495. Diego Gradis founded a trading company in 1685. His son David Gradis (1665–1751) inherited the concern ten years later. He bought his first ship, Le Tigre, in England in 1711. This was followed by a long line of armed trading vessels. David Gradis abandoned the trade in cloth and entered trade with the colonies with his Compagnie David Gradis et fils. He sent wine, brandy, flour, lard and salted Irish beef, and obtained in return refined and raw sugar, among other items. In 1722 David Gradis launched a commercial business in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, and in 1724 opened a branch in Saint-Domingue. The company engaged in a triangular trade. It loaded salted meat, wines and spirits in Bordeaux, which it took to the French and American ports. En route, the ships made a discreet visit to Gorée Island on the coast of Dakar, where they purchased slaves directly from the officials there. In 1748 the Gradis house established itself on Gorée and became a major participant in the slave trade with the Americas. The bankers Cottin, Banquet et Mallet gave solid support to David Gradis and his son Abraham (c. 1699–1780), which allowed them to open the facility on Gorée. Despite laws discriminating against Jews in the colonies, the family became so powerful that the colonial government exempted it from the prohibition against owning land. In Martinique the Gradis family owned a home in Basse-Pointe and devoted itself to cultivation and manufacture of cane sugar. The Gradis house corresponded with all the main markets of Europe, and were prominent in trade between France and the Caribbean, Canada and the United States. From before the French Revolution the family was recognized as leaders of the French Jewish community.