Engerman S.L., Gallman R.E. The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Vol. 1: The Colonial Era
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The
Northern
Colonies:
Economy
and
Society
kee schooners could safely operate, and provided New England settlers
with both security on their northern frontiers and a windfall of previously
cleared Acadian farmland to occupy. Then, by conquering Canada and
damaging thereby the bargaining position of the Iroquois, British military
might opened the western territories of New York and Pennsylvania to
colonial agricultural development. Most important of all was the British
Navy's long and successful campaign to achieve dominance over the North
Atlantic. Simply put, it helped to be on the winning side; the disruption
of foreign fleets and the privilege of operating under the protective wing of
the British Navy often enabled American traders and privateers to reap
windfalls from war they would otherwise have missed. By countering
French privateers, driving pirates from the seas, and paying an annual
tribute to the Barbary powers that persuaded the latter to leave British and
colonial shipping alone, the Crown and its navy made the North Atlantic
of the eighteenth century a protected arena for northern merchant trade.
Britain's struggle against France, Spain, and the Netherlands in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was
a
program of commercial aggres-
sion, conceived with little attention to the interests of her colonial posses-
sions.
Yet it was inevitable that colonial societies driven by the pursuit of
competency and possessed of commercial institutions similar to those of
the mother country would have profited too from the imperial triumph.
CONCLUSION
The northern provinces were by no means the most prosperous of Britain's
American possessions. By most measures, either in the performance of
their own economies or in their significance within the transoceanic econ-
omy, they suffered by comparison to the plantation colonies of the South.
The significance of their developments up to the outbreak of the Revolu-
tionary War, however, lay not in the quantity of growth they had achieved
but in the character of
the
economy they had acquired. Complex, mercan-
tile,
and diversified, the colonies of the Northeast had not yet begun to
industrialize, but by 1775, they did possess social structures replete with
farmers, traders, seamen, craftsmen, and a matching contingent of skilled
housewives and daughters, all of whom would later be mobilized into
domestic outwork, petty manufacturing concerns, and factory production.
Truthfully, some of the plantation colonies were also moving in the direc-
tion of diversification in the eighteenth century. But they started late, and
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
248 Daniel
Vickers
the lead that their northern counterparts had gained early on in craft
production, shipping, and merchant services enabled the North to capture
much of the business that southern growth eventually did generate. In
essence, northeastern North America led the New World into the indus-
trial age, because it had come closest over its colonial history to imitating
successfully the first industrial nation of
all:
Great Britain. And paradoxi-
cally, it had done so for reasons that had in the beginning as much to do
with matters of faith and self-determination as they had with profit.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUTH
RUSSELL R. MENARD
THE SOUTH ON THE EVE OF
INDEPENDENCE
At the eve of the American independence movement, the idea of
the
South
is an anachronism, a concept whose time is yet to come. If
by
the colonial
South one means the area bounded on the north by (roughly) the Ohio and
Susquehanna rivers, at the west by the Mississippi, and at the east and
south by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of
Mexico,
there is little to tie
the region together. Even under more restricted definitions confined to
territory long-claimed by the British (excluding, that is, the newly ac-
quired Floridas and the French settlement at Louisiana) or the more lim-
ited region actually colonized by the British (excluding the trans-
Appalachian west), the area has little unity. In 1775, there was no "South"
with a single, integrated economy, a unifying culture, or a cohesive ruling
class with a shared vision of the future. We are best served by recognizing
diversity from the start and rejecting the notion of
a
"South" in favor of a
concept of
"Souths,"
four proximate but separate regions with distinctive
characteristics: the tobacco colonies around Chesapeake Bay; the rice and
indigo districts of the Carolina-Georgia lowcountry; an area of mixed
farming or "common husbandry" in the backcountry and around the
periphery of the plantation districts; and a frontier zone dominated by
cross-cultural trade. However, if the South was not yet a region, the
factors that would give it greater unity and define its character during the
early nineteenth century were firmly in place: an expansive plantation
agriculture, African slavery, and an emerging planter class with a sense of
purpose.
249
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
250
Russell
R. Menard
Table 6.1. Estimated population of
the South
in 1775 (000
omitted)
Region
Tobacco Coast
Maryland
Virginia
NC coastal plain
Total
Lowcountry
Cape Fear, NC
South Carolina
Georgia
East Florida
Total
Area of "common husbandry"/backcountry
Western Maryland
Valley of Virginia
NC Piedmont
South Carolina
Georgia
Total
Frontier
West Florida
Southern Interior
Northern Interior
Louisiana
Total
Total
Red
0.2
0.3
0.2
0.7
0.1
0.1
0.1
1.5
1.8
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.4
0.5
1.3
50
33-2
2.0
3.7
43-9
47.7
White
127.5
234.3
76.8
438.6
7.0
21.5
5.0
1.8
35.3
24.3
45.2
88.7
50.4
9.0
217.6
4.0
2.1
0.3
10.9
17.3
708.8
Black
69.9
181.2
44.0
295.1
7.8
71.7
12.0
1.0
92.5
2.3
5.2
22.2
11.8
1.0
42.5
1.5
0.7
0.0
9.6
11.8
441.9
Total
197.6
415.8
121.0
734.4
14.9
93.3
17.1
4.3
129.6
26.7
50.5
111.1
62.6
10.5
261.4
10.5
36.0
2.3
24.2
73.0
1,198.4
Sources: Estimated by the author from
a
variety of sources, principally: U.S. Bureau of
the
Census,
Historical
Statistics
of the United
States,
Colonial Times
to 1970 (Washington, DC: 1975), II, 1168 (Ser.
Z,
1-19);
John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The
Economy
of British
America,
1607-1789
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1985), 136, 172; Evarts B. Greene and Virginia D. Harrington,
American
Population before
the
Federal Census
of 1790 (New York, 1937); Stella H. Sutherland,
Population
Distribution in
Colonial America
(New York, 1936); Peter H. Wood, "The Changing Population of the
Colonial South: An Overview by Race and Region, 1685-1790," in Peter H. Wood, Gregory A.
Waselkov, and M. Thomas Hartley, eds.,
Powhatan's
Mantle:
Indians
in the
Colonial Southeast
(Lincoln,
NE,
1989), 35-103.
As a point of entry to the "South" and its several regions, Table 6.1
offers some population estimates for 1775. These numbers are at best
approximate. The regions do not conform to the boundaries of colonies,
for which we have reliable (or at least widely accepted) figures, while the
inclusion of Indians requires estimating the size of groups seldom
counted, let alone counted carefully. Although rough, the figures are
accurate enough to capture major differences between the regions and to
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Economic
and
Social Development
of the
South
251
establish some important points about the South. The area was home to
about 1.2 million people in 1775. A substantial majority (slightly less
than 60 percent) were whites, immigrants from Europe and their descen-
dants,
who had begun to settle ("invade" is perhaps the more accurate
term) the region early in the seventeenth century. A bit more than a third
were Africans and their descendants brought as slaves to work for Euro-
pean masters. Only a small proportion
—
just under 50,000, about 4
percent of the total
—
were Indians, descendants of the region's aboriginal
inhabitants.
From a British perspective, the oldest South was the tobacco coast, the
regions around Chesapeake Bay that, in some degree at least, had an
economy built around tobacco. The area includes all of Maryland and
Virginia east of the Blue Ridge as well as North Carolina's coastal plain
above Cape Fear. The oldest region was also the most populous, its
700,000-plus inhabitants accounting for more than 60 percent of the
South's people. European Americans were the majority in the region, but
Africans at 40 percent of the total were a substantial presence and in
some areas outnumbered whites. Tobacco production had thoroughly
dominated the regional economy in the seventeenth century, but as the
colonial era progressed, a gradual diversification ended the relative homo-
geneity. By the eve of the Revolution, the region resembled a horseshoe
with a plantation district raising tobacco for European markets at the
center and a farming area producing grains and forest products around
the periphery.
The lowcountry, a narrow coastal strip stretching from Cape Fear in
North Carolina to the Altamaha River in Georgia and including the
newly acquired British colony of East Florida, was home to roughly
130,000 people, just over 10 percent of the population of the South. In
contrast to the Chesapeake, blacks were a majority in the lowcountry,
accounting for over 70 percent of the total, even higher in the great
plantation district around Charlestown. The regional economy was domi-
nated by rice and indigo, produced by slaves on big plantations for
export to Europe, crops which made the great planters rich and
lowcountry prosperity legendary.
The backcountry, a region of "common husbandry" stretching from
Western Maryland down the great Valley of Virginia to include North
Carolina's piedmont and the small farming areas of South Carolina and
Georgia, grew rapidly during the eighteenth century. By 1775, it had
some 260,000 inhabitants, just over 20 percent of the South's popula-
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
252
Russell
R. Menard
tion.
1
In contrast to the longer-settled regions nearer the coast, slaves were
a minor part of the population, only 15 percent of the total. The region
was dominated by small, family-operated farms producing livestock and
grains for home consumption, although some of that output was shipped
to the coast. Families often made small quantities of tobacco, hemp and
flax, and forest products for export. As a region, the backcountry exhib-
ited less unity than either the lowcountry or the tobacco coast, in part
because its various segments were loosely integrated into the Atlantic
world through ties to the tidewater, but also because it was a shifting,
transitional area gradually acquiring plantation characteristics.
The frontier, a vast but sparsely settled area stretching from the
backcountry to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Gulf of Mexico,
was inhabited by some 73,000 people in 1775, only 6 percent of the
South's population. The region exhibited considerable diversity, with a
rapidly developing plantation district in the Mississippi delta and some
areas of small farms where the frontier receded and became backcountry.
The region's distinguishing characteristic was the large native presence.
More than 90 percent of the South's native peoples lived in this section,
principally Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws but including
numerous smaller groups, and they accounted for more than 60 percent of
the population of
the
frontier. Despite the growing plantation district and
the pressure of European settlers, the frontier was "Indian country" in
1775,
a place where native peoples shaped the rules of exchange and where
their behavior and aspirations continued to structure the economy.
The South was overwhelmingly rural in 1775. If we use a modest
threshold of 2,000, perhaps 4 percent of the "colonial" (persons of Euro-
pean and African descent) population lived in towns; a lower threshold of
1,000 increases the proportion only to about 5 percent. While all of the
subregions were largely rural, there were notable differences. Oddly, the
frontier region, where the European presence was recent and still tenuous,
was the most urbanized. New Orleans, whose population approached
5,000
in 1775, was home to nearly 20 percent of the area's colonial
inhabitants. The tobacco coast, the oldest colonial region, may have been
the least urbanized with perhaps
3
percent of its residents living in substan-
tial towns. The backcountry displayed a level of urbanization similar to
that along the tobacco coast, but the rapid growth of Frederick and
Winchester as well as the proliferation of small towns along the Great
1
The phrase "common husbandry" is from Harry J. Carman, ed., American Husbandry (New York:
1939 [orig. publ. 1775D. 240.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Economic
and
Social
Development
of the South
253
Wagon Road suggests
a
great potential
for
town development. Roughly
12 percent
of
the lowcountry's colonial population lived
in
towns,
in
large
part because of Charlestown's rise as
a
market center but also because of its
role
as the
seat
of
government
and as a
consumer city where rich planters
gathered
to
socialize
and
spend. With 12,000 inhabitants
in 1775,
Charlestown
was by far the
South's largest city.
It was
also
the
richest,
reflecting
its
place
as the
capital
of
British North America's wealthiest
agricultural region.
The economic history
of
the South usually
is
told
as a
story
of
growth,
what Adam Smith described
as an
"advance
... to
wealth
and
great-
ness."
2
For the
most part, this essay follows convention. While that
growth was bought
at an
enormous cost
to
the region's aboriginal inhabit-
ants
and to
African slaves, Smith identified from
a
European perspective
the central theme
in
the economic history of the South during the colonial
era.
The
evidence describes
a
remarkable
and
broadly shared prosperity
among European Americans
on the
eve
of
the Revolution. Colonists were
well
fed by the
standards
of
the time, hardly surprising given
the
abun-
dance
of
land
and an
economy
in
which perhaps
85
percent
of
the labor
force worked
on
farms
and
plantations.
The
quality
of
diet
is
revealed
in
the stature
of
the population:
by the
time
of the
Revolution, southern-
born men of European ancestry were, on average, just over 5*8" tall, about
3.5 inches taller than their English counterparts, slightly taller than
northerners,
and
about
the
same height
as
Americans
who
served
in the
military during World War
II.
White southerners were also well clothed,
in
part because their lively
export economies
and
membership
in
the British Empire during the early
states
of
industrialization gave them easy access
to
English textiles. Even
families with modest incomes were able
to
acquire amenities that made
life more comfortable: good bedding, tableware
and
ceramics, sugar,
tea,
spices,
and the
like. Such high levels
of
comfort were
not
always the case.
Food
was
ample from
the
beginning,
at
least after
the
terrible "starving
times"
that afflicted several early settlements were overcome,
but the
standard
of
life remained crude
for
several decades after the initial English
invasion.
By the
mid-eighteenth century, however, there
had
been
a
con-
siderable improvement.
Improvements were less marked
in
housing,
and by
this measure, most
colonists did
not
live as well as their peers
in
the parent country. The great
1
An
Inquiry into
lit
Nature andCauses oftie
Wealth
ofNations, ed.
R. H.
Campbell,
A. S.
Skinner,
and
W. B. Todd (Oxford: 1976 [orig. pub., 1776]), II, 564.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
254 Russell R. Menard
planters of the South built in the grand style, especially in the years after
1725,
but the majority of European settlers lagged behind. Their houses
were generally small and had few rooms, lacked foundations or wood floors,
and were often of wood construction. By the
eve
of the Revolution, perhaps
only 15 percent of the housing stock in the South consisted of substantial
two-story stone structures with
stairways,
differentiated
rooms,
brick chim-
neys,
and glass windows. In the backcountry and, indeed, among most
small planters nearer the
coast,
the typical house
was
a 20' by 16' box frame
structure sided with clapboards and roofed with shingles, with a wattle and
daub chimney and a
floor
of beaten earth. Such houses had a single room or
at most two and a loft; glassless, curtainless windows with shutters to keep
out the cold; and unadorned, unpainted walls chinked with clay against the
elements. The inferiority of southern dwellings reflects the rapid growth of
population, which put great pressure on the housing stock, the scarcity of
skilled craftsmen, and the high price of labor generally, all of which made
substantial homes relatively expensive. Despite their prosperity, southern-
ers put up with houses that were crowded, poorly insulated, dark, unsafe,
and unattractive by the standards of the English-speaking world.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence of southern economic perfor-
mance is found in the growth of population, which increased at a rate
"without parallel in
history.
"3
The "colonial" segment of the population
grew from less than 15,000 in 1650 to nearly 120,000 by 1700, more
than half a million by 1750, and to well over a million by 1775 (Figure
6.1). The contrast with Europe is striking. From 1700 to 1750, when the
South's population rose more than fourfold, England's increased by 14
percent from 5.1 million to 5.8 million, while that of
Europe
as a whole
grew by 17 percent from 125 million to 146 million.
Reflection on the sources of population growth clarifies the relationship
between demographic performance and southern prosperity. Immigration
made an important contribution. Thousands of Europeans crossed the
Atlantic to pursue colonial opportunities; thousands of Africans were
wrenched to the South to make some European dreams a reality. But much
of the high southern growth rate was a product of natural increase. This
was not because of lower mortality; death rates were higher in the South
than in England. Rather, the rapid increases stemmed from colonial mar-
riage patterns. Women in the South
—
white or black, rich
or
poor,
tidewa-
ter or backcountry
—
married earlier and in higher proportions than in
» Thomas Robert Malchus, An
Essay on
the
Principle
of Population, as It
Affects
the Futon
Improvement of
Mankind
(London:
1798),
10;.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
1,800,000
1,600,000
1,400,000
130,000
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
200,000
I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1—) 1 1 1 1 1 1
Figure 6. i. Estimated southern population. (Source: See source note to Table
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
256 Russell R. Menard
England or the northern colonies. This distinct marriage pattern led to
larger numbers of children and played the main role in the high southern
growth rates. As contemporaries often explained, these "more general, and
more generally early" marriages were rooted in colonial prosperity, espe-
cially in the "liberal reward of labour," the abundance of land, and the
consequent "Ease and Convenience of supporting a
Family.
"*
By combining data on population size with estimates of per capita
income, it is possible to chart the size of the economy in that part of the
South that joined the American independence movement. Based on a
careful analysis of probate records, Alice Hanson Jones concluded that
per capita income in the South in 1774 ranged between £10.4 and
£12.1 sterling, or $1,145
to
I
1
.332 in 1990 dollars. Given a population
of 1.12 million and using the midpoint of Jones' range yields a gross
product for the South in 1775 of $1,387 billion (1990 dollars). With an
assumption about rates of productivity gain, it is possible to chart the
growth of the southern economy from the mid-seventeenth century to
the end of the colonial era. Table 6.2 performs such a calculation,
assuming that per capita incomes rose at 0.5 percent annually over the
125 years following 1650, a rate near the midpoint of the range for that
period suggested by recent scholarship. Under that assumption, per
capita income in the South was roughly $660 in 1650 and $935 in
1720.
In the aggregate, the economy expanded at a rate of 4.2 percent
annually over the entire period, 3.7 percent in the years following 1720.
That is an impressive performance by any standard. For the early modern
era, when stagnation and decline were more common than growth and
when even the highly successful English economy grew at only 0.5
percent per year, it is remarkable.
To a large extent, southern prosperity rested on the performance of the
export sector, especially of the major plantation crops
—
tobacco, rice, and
indigo. Together, those three crops accounted for about three-quarters of
the value of all exports from the South on the eve of the Revolution and
roughly 40 percent of the value of exports from all of Britain's continental
colonies. In per capita terms, southern exports averaged about £1.8 ster-
ling per year at the end of the colonial period, roughly twice the level
achieved by New England and the Middle Colonies. If attention is con-
fined to the free population, which, after all, controlled the resulting
' Benjamin Franklin, "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries,
etc."
(1751), in Leonard W. Labaree et al., eds., The
Papers
of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT:
I959-).
IV, 228; Smith, Wealth ofNationi, II, 565.
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