Plantation Empire - How Sugar and Tobacco Planters Built Their Industries and Raised An Empire

Plantation Empire: How Sugar and Tobacco Planters Built Their Industries and Raised an Empire
Author(s): Russell R. Menard

Source: Agricultural History, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Summer, 2007), pp. 309-332
Published by: Agricultural History Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20454724
Accessed: 11-01-2016 00:44 UTC
REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20454724?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Agricultural History Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Agricultural History.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 104.181.252.159 on Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:44:45 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Plantation Empire:How Sugar and Tobacco

Planters Built theirIndustriesand Raised
an Empire
R. MENARD
RUSSELL
This essay develops an American approach to the rise of theEnglish At

lantic during the seventeenth century. It argues thatproductivity gains in
plantation agriculture fueled an extraordinary expansion of commerce as
planters raising tobacco, sugar, and rice improved theirefficiencyand were
able to lowerprices. Lower prices made theproducts of American planta
tions affordable to an ever-growingnumber of European consumers. The
increased consumption fueled the expansion of theAmerican plantation
colonies, transformedtheAtlantic intoan English inland sea, and led to the
creation of thefirstBritish Empire; one of thegreat commercial successes
of theEarly Modern Era. The essay also interrogatesthe concept of pro
ductivitygains in a slave economy, arguing thatwhat are often interpreted
as improvements inproductivitywere in fact increases in labor inputs as
planters squeezed slaves harder. This raises thequestion, then,of whether
productivitygains (or increased labor inputs) signal thatplanters were for
ward-looking entrepreneursor backward seigneurs?
As NICHOLASCANNYHAS NOTED, the number of Englishmerchants

interestedinAmerican opportunitiesbefore the end of the sixteenth
century was
small, and "the modest
RUSSELL R. MENARD
versions
in Portland,
state
isprofessorof historyat theUniversityofMinnesota. Earlier
of this essay were
Association
involvement of the English
presented
Oregon,
to the annual meeting
in October
2005;
of the Social
to the workshop
Science
History
of the Early Modern
HistoryCenter at theUniversityofMinnesota inSeptember2005; and to theMinnesota

Early
American
participants
History
workshop
at all those presentations,
in January
2006.
but especially
The
David
author would
Ryden,
Farley
like to thank
Grubb,
JohnMurray forhelpfulcomments.
? theAgriculturalHistory Society,2007
309
and
Agricultural History
Summer
with overseas venturesreflectsa generallylow levelof communalinter

est." Carla
Pestana
similarly commented
that most
of the twenty-four
distinctsettlementsinEnglishAmerica in the 1640s had appeared op

and did not reflect a coherent
portunistically
plan or emerge
out of
consideredpolicy.By themiddle of theseventeenthcentury,however,

by then a large number of mer
things started to change. There were

inAmerican
chants engaged
trades, and more
than a few of them were
rich.Further,
American tradespiqued theinterestof somepolicymakers
as their revenue potential
became
apparent, while
policy was beginning
coherent American
the early stages of the rise of an English Atlantic
mark
circles a
in some
to take shape. These

world
changes
and the
firsttentativesteps towardtheconstructionof theFirstBritishEmpire,

a process
thatwould
transform theNorth Atlantic
eventually
thing like an English
into some
inland sea.1
there is a large and rich literature on these processes, most of
While
it approaches
the rise of the British Empire
and the English Atlantic
froman Englishmetropolitanperspective.This essay approaches the

issues froman American perspective,arguing thatneither theBritish
Empire
nor the English Atlantic
plantation
can be explained without attending
to the productivity gains achieved
agriculture-particularly
by tobacco and sugar planters-which
enabled
them to sell their prod
ucts at lower prices, thus bringing their products within

ever more
consumers. The
fueled the expansion

Among
to
the budgets of
resulting market growth for plantation
crops
of the English Atlantic.
the forces behind
the emerging English
tation crops, sugar and tobacco,
Empire were
the first great commercial
plan
successes
of
England's ventures into theAmericas. English importsof Chesapeake

tobacco
(a rough proxy for production)
half of the seventeenth
expanded mightily over the first
century (see Figure
1). Starting at just over one
thousandpounds in1616, tobacco importshoveredaround ten thousand

by the mid-1620s,
pounds
annually
pounds
by 1630, and over a million
century, English
bon. The
consumers
great Barbadian
part by London
importing about
Figure 2), worth
merchants,
reached
three hundred
got their sugar from Brazil

sugar boom
changed
five thousand
thousand
by 1640. In the early seventeenth

by way of Lis
of the 1640s, financed
in large
all that. By the 1650s England
tons of Barbadian
roughly fifty thousand pounds
was
sugar annually
(see
sterling on the London
310
2007
Plantation Empire
30
100000000
10000000
25
A- 1000000
..........
........
......... ...........................................................................
20 -_
I
.;100000
II
eg
- - -XJ 15 - -----------------------
;!
...................................................~~~~~~~~~~~~~
..........
........
e fi
Exports
:
0.
1000
-------------------------------.........
.......
......
10-----------------------------------------------------------------------~
~~~ ~~~~~...................
~~~
10~
~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
100
10
'I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-
111,
,e4
Year
Tobacco
Source: Russell
Figure 1. The Growth of the Chesapeake
Industry, 1616-1700.
R. Menard,
"The Tobacco
1617-1730:
An Inter
Colonies,
Industry in the Chesapeake
pretation," Research
market.
major
in Economic
By mid-century
part of England's
History
5 (1980):
the tobacco
external
ships and thousands of seamen
157-61.
and sugar trades had become
commerce,
employing
hundreds
of
and attracting the interests of some of
the country's richest merchants.2

The firstNavigation
Laws, which gave the emerging empire a formal
structure and clear policy, were written

merchants
especially
determined
in part by tobacco
and sugar
to protect those trades from foreign competition,
fromDutch merchants. While
it is likely thatDutch
activity in
311
the English
colonies
of America
Summer
has been greatly exaggerated,
the En
glishmerchantshad reason toworry.During theDutch Revolt against

the Habsburgs,
Dutch
English merchants
distractions
Levant. Once
had been able
to take advantage
into trade networks
to move
freed of Spanish
in the Baltic
of
and the
control, the Dutch were able to use their
commercialsuperiorityto regaincontrolof those tradespreviouslylost

to theEnglish.Some English colonialmerchantsfearedthattheAmeri
can
trades might be next, so they turned to the state and wrote
the
Before the articulationof a

NavigationActs to protect theirinterests.
formal structure with the passage
of these acts around mid-century,
the
English empire inAmerica had been an informalassociation,bound

together by the subordination
of the several colonies
to the crown, by
the common cultureand identitiesof the colonists,and most impor

tantly,
by theactivitiesofLondon merchantswho linkedthe relatively
distinct enterprises around
ibbean
into a more
threat of theDutch
rice Thompson
from New England
the Atlantic
or less coherent
persuaded
and Martin
commercial
whole.
to the Car
The
looming
the leaders among those merchants, Mau

that a more
Noell,
formal structure was
needed toprotect theirinterests.3

With
was
we
the advantage
an English Empire
can date
passage
inAmerica
and in recognition
before
to the 1650s with
Jamaica
to the Empire,
territory in the Caribbean).
these policies were
Since
crops. The centrality of plantation
agriculture
is confirmed by the data in Table
in large
their fortunes in
tobacco and sugar, one might argue that the British Empire
to plantation
in
Design
thus greatly expanding En
part a reflection of the interests of men who made
pire at its creation
the
Act of 1651, the start of the firstAnglo
in 1652, and the execution of Cromwell's Western
1654 (which added
that there
there was a British Empire,
the origins of the British Empire
of the firstNavigation
Dutch War
gland's
of retrospection,
owed
its life
to the Em
1,which show that
a substantial majority of the inhabitants of English America
lived in the
West Indies or theChesapeake colonies, both regionsdominated by

plantation
1650s
agriculture. Unfortunately,
that would
permit an assessment
there are no trade data

of the relative
for the
importance
of
plantationagriculturetoEngland's emergingempire.There is,however,

data
on London
imports for 1686, which
show
that the plantation
312
2007
Plantation Empire
-
60
100000
50 -
40
-4-price
30
0
20
.___
10
. ................
A.,jj
-- F-JX-10000
}
1-4*exports
_- - - Linear (exports)
___
................. . .
...........
........ ......
1000
Year
Figure 2. The Barbadian Sugar Industry,

1651-1706. Source: Russell R.Menard, Sweet
Negotiations:Sugar, Slavery,and PlantationAgricultureinEarlyBarbados (Charlottes
ville:University
ofVirginiaPress, 2006), 67-90.
crops-tobacco
and sugar-accounted
imports from the American

The act of October
9, 1651, usually referred to as the firstNavigation
Act, was "the firstparliamentary

defined England's
for 76 percent of the value of all
colonies.4
commercial
and openly at the Dutch
statute that in any comprehensive

policy." The
act "was directed
carrying trade, in hope of driving Dutch
way
frankly
ships
313
Summer
Table 1. Population of theEnglish Colonies inAmerica,

1650-1770 (in thousands)
Region
West
1650
1700
1750
1770
59
148
Indies
Lower South
330
479
16.4
142.2
344.8
377.8
Upper South
12.7
98.1
Plantation Colonies
71.7
262.5
Continental Colonies
Total
649.6
850
1473.4
55
265
1206
2283
114
412
1536
2762
SOURCE:John J.McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of BritishAmerica,

1607-1789 (Chapel Hill: UniversityofNorth Carolina Press, 1985), 54, 136, 154, 172.
NOTE: Bermuda
and
are included
the Bahamas
in the figures for the continental
colonies.
Native American Indian residentsof the regionwho livedunder tribalgovernmentsout

side
the areas
settled by Europeans
and Africans
out of the colonial market." While
are not included
it is not entirely clear who wrote
act, it is usually agreed that itwas Martin Noell,

Barbadian
sugar boom, and Maurice
lonial merchant
in these figures.
Thompson.
of the day, and Thompson,
the
a leading investor in the

Noell,
a man
the leading co
heavily
involved
in
theChesapeake colonies,playedmajor roles in shaping the legislation.

The
colonial merchants
the state to protect
persuaded
the trades that they had built over
their control of
the first half of the seventeenth
century.5
The Navigation
Act
of 1651 was
rescinded
along with all other leg
islation of the Interregnum years as part of the Restoration

W. A. Speck
explains
"because
gation Ordinance,
Rump without
the logic behind
the ordinance
the consent of the House
ished, or of the king, whom

void when Charles
II was
revenue potential
consequence,
the essence
easier
passed
by the
it had abol
itwas held to be null and
Act
Parliament
at the Restoration.
crops, since revenues
to raise than land or excise
of 1660 by the convention

of tobacco
the
traders, and he was enticed by the
of the act of 1651 was
Navigation
revenue potential
had been
of Lords, which
it had executed,
of the plantation
usually
compromise.
to scrap the Navi
restored in 1660." The new king needed
support and the funds of the colonial

charges were
this decision
The
taxes. As
repackaged
that assumed
king was
and sugar. As
from customs
a
in the
the role of
correct to attend
to the
early as the mid-1670s,
314
to
2007
Plantation Empire
baccowould generateannual revenuesforthecrownworthone hundred

thousandpounds sterling,
while revenuesfromsugarwould amount to
roughlythreetimesthatsum.6
The act of 1660 and its companion
piece of legislation passed
in 1663
created the structurethatwould organizeEnglish and colonial com

merce fora century.
Although theactswere supplementedseveral times
over the remainingcolonial period, primarilyto close loopholes and
up thesystem,thebasic structureremainedunchangedfromthe
tighten
1660s,until theAmerican Revolution brought it crashingdown. The
of the navigation
central provision
system was
commerce
that colonial
must be carriedout inships thatwere English-built,

English-owned,and
manned
by crews thatwere
three-quarters English. Although American
colonials counted as English for thepurposes of theNavigationActs,

thisprovisioneffectively
excluded foreignersfromtradewith thecolo
nies. Further, certain products,
tobacco
and sugar among
them, were
designated as enumerated,whichmeant that theyhad to be shipped

to an English
from the colonies
port regardless of their ultimate desti
nation, a provision thatprotectedEnglish merchants frompotential

colonial
competitors. The act of 1663 mandated
that no goods could be
importedintothecolonies fromEurope exceptbyway ofEngland.This

ensured
that the colonial
import trade would
remain
in the hands of
Englishmerchants.7
Despite theassertionsof theirharmfulconsequencesby planters,the
Navigation
did not stop the expansion
Acts
Indeed, as Figures
colonies.
of the colonial
plantation
1 and 2 show, they did not even slow them
one
down. The planters' complaintsto the contrarynotwithstanding,
could easily build a case
Navigation
that the colonial
Acts. The Navigation
Acts
of the English Atlantic.
access, sometimes
exclusively,
forced colonists
from the
integrated the colonies
dynamic economy
and also provided protection
economy benefited
The
acts gave
to the lucrative English
domestic market
in an often hostile world. True,
to purchase manufactured
goods
into the
the colonies
the system
and commercial
ser
but these tended to be the best and least expensive
vices from England,
available anyway.8
In any case, the plantation
the Navigation
eraged
Acts. English
just under
colonies
grew rapidly after the passage
imports ofWest
four thousand
Indian sugar-which
tons per year
in the early 1650s
315
of
av
Summer
reached ten thousandtonsin the1680s,andmore thanfifteenthousand

if anything, even more
expansion was,
by the 1690s. Tobacco's
impres
sive.English importsof Chesapeake tobacco, afterreachinga million

in 1640, soared
pounds
to more
than thirtymillion
by century's
end.
Despite the continued expansion of their industries,theNavigation

Laws angered theplanters.Richard Sheridan,whose excellenthistoryof
of the planters, refers to
the sugar islands often reflects the perspective
the "Hated NavigationActs."9

Historians
theNavigation
often describe
Acts
as a pure expression
of
While theNavigationActs certainlyreflect

theideologyofmercantilism.
that it is helpful to think of mercan
I am not persuaded
mercantilism,
tilism as an ideology. Mercantilism
as a situation in
is better understood
policy rather than as a consistent
shaped commercial
which merchants
body of thought or a doctrine. This
seems consistent with what Adam
Smith had inmind when he spoke of it as the policy of "a nation that is
governed
Wealth
Or, as he put it in the second edition of The
by shopkeepers."
"a nation whose
of Nations,
government
is influenced by shop
keepers."While thegreat colonialmerchants of themid-seventeenth

century would
certainly have bristled at being called
seems a fair description
shopkeepers,
this
of the events and interests that produced
the
Acts was
that
NavigationActs.10
A major
cause for planter anger toward theNavigation
the great expansions
of the sugar and tobacco
industries in the seven
teenth century occurred within a context of rapidly falling prices

1 and 2). Sugar prices on the island fell from around
Figures
shillings Barbados
matic decline. The
ling per pound
a penny
prices
the seventeenth
output
In many
increased.
falling prices and rising output
sponded
too enthusiastically
bear, which
accounts
inversely related:
the relationship
is straightforward. Planters
re
to the high prices of the early and mid
century and produced
markets would
fell from 5d. ster
century prices and pro
industries were
between
seventeenth
tobacco
in the 1630s, to roughly 2.5d. in the 1650s, to well under
in the 1690s. During
fell while
to
prices show an equally dra
farm price of Chesapeake
in both the sugar and tobacco
duction
in the early 1650s,
currency per hundredweight
nine to ten shillings by the 1690s. Tobacco
(see
twenty
more
tobacco
and sugar than the
then drove prices down. Planters
that the restrictions of the system created
by the Navigation
insisted
Acts
316
Plantation Empire
2007
from trade and the high taxes that
the exclusion of theDutch
especially
the system placed on tobacco and sugar-were
responsible
for the price
decline,whichbroughthard timestoproducers.Strugglingtomake ends

meet
in the face of falling prices, planters made
larger and larger crops,
over the longhaul by driving

which only compounded theirdifficulties
prices even lower.1"
Given
that both crops had customs charges several times larger than
their price in the colonies, one might think that the planters had a case.
However,
tobacco and sugar from foreign colonies

farmers were not allowed
rates, while English

gave colonial
policies
home market.
on the lucrative
a virtual monopoly
producers
Further,
sold with even higher
to raise tobacco. These
customs
charges
on both crops
seventeenth century, so customs can hardly be blamed

down. Duties
bacco
the
for forcing prices
on re-exported products were usually rebated, so the to
and sugar of English
markets
fell over
of Europe.
Thus,
colonial
producers were
although planters may
competitive
in the
have been partially
correctinblaming fallingpriceson overproductionand therestrictions

of the navigation
system, there were
clearly mitigating
factors.12
Plantercomplaintsalso obscure amore complexandmore interesting

process.
In classic new industry patterns, sugar and tobacco prices fell
because planters and merchants discoveredbetter and more efficient

ways of producing
and marketing
and tobacco prices fell because

would
nial
bear
tobacco
is backward.
prompted
increasing proportion
of English men
increased
tryside, as theymoved
and women.
spread from themajor
than themarket
the markets
prices, tobacco and sugar became
lonial products widened,

to products
argument that sugar
planters produced more
Falling prices expanded
and sugar, which
result of decreasing
their crops. The
for colo
production.
affordable
The market
As
to an
for co
port cities to the coun
from being luxury items used chiefly by the rich
that a growing number of the working
poor
regarded
as
necessities.While in the 1620s only gentlemenused tobacco, by the

1690s it had become
"a Custom,
the Fashion,
every Plow-man
has his Pipe." Thomas
to sugar as well
as tobacco.'3
all theMode
Tyron's observation
... so that
could apply
Not surprisingly,
historianshave been skepticalof productivity
gains
in colonial agriculture.Such skepticismis due mostly to thepersistent
image of the colonial
farmer as a predator
rather than a husbandman,
317
as
Agricultural
History
a slovenly abuser
of the land who
Summer
cared poorly
for his livestock, ac
small yields and low incomes, and used primitive tools and re
cepted
sisteduseful innovation,followingthedead hand of tradition.Scholars

have assumed
that farming technology was stable and primitive and that
over the colonial period.

agricultureregisteredfewgains in efficiency
Although thiscaricatureof colonial farmersno longerdominates the
literature,tracesof itpersist in thework ofMarxist-influencedpartici
pants in the transition-to-capitalism
the notion of a market
defend
debate
and inwritings of those who
revolution
in the early nineteenth
cen
tury.The histories of tobacco and sugar argue strongly that we need

those remaining vestiges of the old caricature
eliminate
to
from our un
derstandingof colonial agriculture.14

Although most of the changes
that led to improved productivity were
specific to each crop, some gains were shared by both sugar and tobacco
of the firstboosts
planters. One
servants
indentured
English
to productivity came with the shift from
to African
slaves. As
Lorena Walsh
has
noted, thistransition
permittedplanters to ignoretheconventionsthat
protected
These
servants from overwork
English
included a rest period
conventions
and Saturday
traditional holidays,
the gendered
governing
to assign women
planters
to field labor. With
permitting a more
disappeared,
afternoons
free of work,
division of labor. As
the unfree workforce,
dominated
and other forms of abuse.

in the heat of the day, many
as well
as
long as English
servants
seem to have been
reluctant
the shift to slaves that reluctance
rational and efficient use of the avail
able workers.'5
While evidence fortheseventeenthcenturyis thin,by theeighteenth
century the tradition of assigning black women
established.
On
both
best-documented
than men
the Newton
Barbadian
to work
and Codrington
plantations,
to fieldwork was well

estates,
two of the
slave women were more
in the fields. Subsequent
likely
to the transition to slavery,
further improvements
in labor productivity were captured by both sugar
and
as slave prices
tobacco planters
slave trade. By the 1680s David

bados had probably
ibbean." Chesapeake
Both
merce,
sugar and
which
Eltis
fell, reflecting efficiencies
in the
reports that "slave prices in Bar
reached an all-time low for any market
in the Car
slave prices also fell to their lowest in that decade.
tobacco planters benefited
lowered
from innovations
interest rates and commission
in com
fees, and
from
318
2007
Plantation Empire
improvementsin shipping,
which loweredfreight
charges.By and large,
however,themost important
changeswere specificto each crop. In the
sugar industry,
thebig changes includedthe riseof the integrated
plan
tation,changes in theorganizationof labor thateventuallyled to the
developmentof thegang system,thegradual shiftfromanimal-driven
mills towindmill improvementsin the refining
process, and thebegin
ningsof rumproduction.16
Before the seventeenthcenturysugar had usually been grownby
small farmers
who broughttheircane to a bigman's mill forprocessing.
Barbadian plantersdiscovered thattherewere efficienciesto be had in
combininggrowingand processingunder one planter's control.The
ownersof these large,integratedplantationssoon began to furtherre
fine theirsugars ratherthan shippingthem in relativelyraw formfor
abroad.Additional refining
refining
yieldedmoremolasses,which could
be exported
in that form or used
to make
rum that was
then sold
throughouttheAtlanticworld. In themid-1660smolasses and rumac

counted for less than 7 percent of the value of Barbadian
exports, but by
century'send theyaccounted foralmost30 percentandwere making a

ofBarbadian planta
major contributionto the improvedproductivity
tions.17
In the tobacco industryit is impossibleto identify
one or twochanges
as centralto increasedproductivity.
Still,theevidenceof improvements
in theproductivity
gainsof theChesapeake tobacco industryis strong.It
appears
clearly
in the record of how much
tobacco
a worker
could
produce. In seventeenth-century
Maryland mean crop per hand rose
fromnine hundredpounds in the1640s, toover fifteen
hundredpounds
in the 1660s, and to nearly nineteen hundred pounds
Table
in the 1690s (see
2). The cause of this increased output is not entirely clear. Recent
scholarshipsuggeststhatitreflectsthecumulativeimpactofmany small
changes
in technique, as planters worked
out the best methods
of raising
thecrop,and thosebestmethods spread throughout

theregion.I suspect
thatthegradualcompletionof thefarm-building
process combinedwith
theelaborationof theChesapeake systemofhusbandryplayedkey roles
in the process,
could
too. Once
planters had working
farms in operation,
they
ignore such tasks as land clearing, fence and barn building, and
orchard planting to concentrate
their energy on growing tobacco.18
The gradual developmentof theChesapeake systemof husbandry

319
Summer
Table 2. Tobacco production perWorker inMaryland and

Virginia, 1619-1700
#Observations
Mean crop sizeper worker

(inpounds)
1619-29
714
1630-39
715
Period
10
924
1650-59
1660-69
6
21
1203
1514
1670-79
13
1599
1680-89
1829
1690-1700
1565
1640-49
SOURCE:Russell R. Menard, "The Tobacco Industryin theChesapeake Colonies, 1617

1730:An Interpretation,"
Research inEconomic History 5 (1980): 145.
was also important to the process. Over

and planters along
the Tobacco
Coast
the seventeenth century farmers

developed
a method
of farming
thatblended European, Native American, and African farmingtech

niques with new methods,
as planters
Chesapeake
of agriculture-a
labor-saving,
to create
learned-by-doing
system of husbandry. This was
a highly productive
the
system
long-fallow, farming style with a twenty
year field rotation using simple tools to grow tobacco
and corn, while
cattle and swine ranged freely in the still sparsely settled colonies. From
my perspective,
themost
that itmeshed
activities
important thing about this new farming style is

in a way
that permitted planters
to maximize
tobacco productionwithout neglecting the other demands of their

farms.19
As
the example
of the gains to planters occasioned
by the transition
fromservants to slavesmight suggest,thereare difficulties

with the
notion of productivity when
the work
to more
it is applied
is done by slaves. From

productive
plantations without
work force or in labor costs. But
to economies
inwhich most of
the planters' perspective,

an increase
the shift led
in the size of the
the shift to slaves was also an increase
in labor inputs as slaves worked more
and longer days than had servants.
How much of the increased output on plantations was due to the greater
skills and experience
ploitation
of Africans
that slavery permitted
and how much

is impossible
to the increase
in ex
to say. Similar points can
320
2007
Plantation Empire
which raisedplantationoutputby in
be made about thegang system,
which
creasingthe intensity
of labor,and to theslave economysystem,
loweredprovisioningcostsby forcingslaves towork longerand harder
to grow theirown food.20
Although I remainpersuaded thatmost of theprice decline forboth
crops isexplainedbyproductivity
increases,itmay be thatplanterswere
partiallycorrect,and thatover-productionplayed a role in the initial
price decline. Sugar inBarbados and tobacco inVirginia emerged as
producers
major commercialcropsduringtimesof highprices.The first
earned exceptionalprofitsas both colonies experiencedbriefbooms.
Others, seeing thehighprofitsearned by the firstentrantsinboth in
dustriesrushedin toparticipatein theboom, drove productionup rap
idly,and collapsed prices,leavingplanterstowhine about thepassingof
theirflushtimes.The boom in theChesapeake ended by the1630s,while
inBarbados, boom conditionslasteduntil the 1640s,perhaps because
start-upcosts in sugarwere higherthan in tobacco.The collapse of the
boom explains the initialprice decline forboth crops,but subsequent
of improvements
in
reductionsinprice are best understoodas a function
productivity.
Whether
shared by both crops or particular
to one, whether
a func
theprocesses did their

tionof increasesinproductionor productivity,
work andmetropolitanprices fell. In 1618Chesapeake tobacco prices
rose as highas eightand nine shillingsper pound inLondon, by the late
1620s itwas
as low as two shillings, and by the late 1630s less than one
shillingper pound. Prices continuedtodecline intothemid-seventeenth

century, but at a much
slower rate. In the 1660s six to eight pence per
poundwas common,and by theearly 1680sYork River sweet-scented

tobacco,generallyregardedas thebest quality tobacco in theChesa
peake, sold forfourpence per pound. Prices atAmsterdam, theprinci
pal European
market
for English
colonial
tobacco,
also show a sharp
decline: in themiddle of the 1630s,Chesapeake tobacco sold for two

shillingsper pound in theDutch port;by theearly1680s itbroughtless
than four pence. Sugar prices also show a sharp decline, falling about 50
percent on the London
wholesale
market
over the second half of the
seventeenthcentury.Retail prices forsugar inLondon fellfromabout

1.25s. sterlingper hundredweightin the 1630s to less than0.5s. in the
1680s.2'
321
Summer
Table 3. Sugar and Tobacco Imports forHome Consumption,

England andWales, 1620-1799
per capita
Tobacco imports
(inpounds)
Years
1620-29
0.01
1630-31
0.02
1663-69
0.93
1672
1.10
Sugar imports
per capita
(inpounds)
2.13
1682, 1688
1.64
1693-99
2.21
1700-1709
2.23
4.01
Consumer inEngland andAmerica (Oxford:

SOURCE:Carole Shammas,The Preindustrial
Clarendon Press, 1990), 79, 82.
As a consequence of these lowerprices,per capita consumptionof

sugar and tobacco
by Carole
increased
Shammas
and Wales
sugar in England
sharply. According
it had
as well:
ifnot yet an item of mass
One
just over four pounds
in
per
at a rate of 0.01 pounds per

sugar could apply to tobacco
consumption,
by century's end, sugar
in the lives of a significant number of
a "constant presence
English men
of
at a rate of 2.2 pounds per head around
summary remark about
1700. Shammas's
had become
reached
tobacco, which was consumed
in the 1620s, was consumed
head
to estimates provided
3, annual consumption
stood at just over two pounds per head
the 1660s; by the late 1680s

capita; while
in Table
and assembled
and women."22
can also trace the increased consumption
of tobacco and sugar in
the spread of linked industries. The number of pipe makers
in England
rose from seven in the 1630s to sixty-six by the 1690s. Sugar refining, an
infant industry in the early seventeenth
century, also grew rapidly. By

in the country, refining an
1695 there were nearly thirty refining houses

estimated
five thousand
ficult to overstate
tons of brown sugar per year. It would
the importance
growth of the English
Empire
century. By 1700 England's

to the successes
of this process
in the Atlantic
empire had become
of tobacco and sugar. Had
during the seventeenth

a colossus,
largely due
planters not found ways
reduce prices by improving their efficiency, the crops would

mained
high-priced
be dif
for the impressive
luxury items with a limited market
have
to
re
and the impres
322
Plantation Empire
2007
sive riseof theEnglish-AmericanEmpire over theseventeenthcentury

not have occurred,
would
for that empire was built on sweetness
and
smoke.23
which,
We can followthegrowthof theempire inpopulation figures,
although
sometimes
the most
shaky, are among
reliable data available
(see Table 1). Over thecourse of theseventeenthcentury,roughlyone

million people-most of themindenturedservantscontractedtowork
sugarand tobacco-migrated fromtheBritish Isles toAmerica. Those
Britishmigrantswere joined by roughly280,000Africans,who reached
the English
in the seventeenth century. As a consequence
colonies
of all
thismigration, thepopulation of EnglishAmerica grew impressively,

from 114,000 in 1650 to nearly half a million
data show, plantation
colonies
dominated
the population
colonies were home
ibbean islands and southern mainland

64 percent of the people
in 1700. As
the empire. In 1700 the Car
and African descent
of European
to well over
in the English
colonies inAmerica.24
on trade confirm the centrality of the plantation
Data
colonies
to
England's emergingempire.AlthoughhistoriansofEnglish tradein the

seventeenthcentury typicallybegin theirpublicationswith laments
the arguments of Ralph
the quality of the evidence,
about
Davis
and
ofEnglish foreigntradeover
F. J.Fischerconcerningthetransformation
that century seem firmly established
and clearly reflect the rise of the
plantationempire.Overall,England's tradedid not expandveryquickly

in the seventeenth century: the best estimates indicate that imports grew
six-fold, from under 1million
sterling in 1600 to about 6 million
in 1700,
while exports (includingre-exports)increasedfromabout 1million to

6.5 million. There was, however, a major
change in the structure of trade
as both markets
substantially, as trade with Eu
rope declined
and products changed
relative to trade with the rest of theworld-especially

sugar and tobacco became major
Americas-when
the
imports. Meanwhile,
miscellaneousmanufacturesjoined there-exportof plantationproducts

to diversify an export mix that had once consisted almost exclusively of
woolens. Since thesenew tradesinvolvedcarryingbulkyproductsover

long distances,
crease
the change
in English
Civil War
ships. The English merchant
high of about
mid-1680s. At
in the structure of trade forced a major

150,000
tons in 1640
in
fleet grew from a pre

to 340,000
tons in the
the same time, the credit and insurance needs of world

323
wide
trade were
such that the seventeenth
Summer
century is said by many
to
have witnessed a "commercialrevolution."Although we should note

that Jacob Price and Paul Clemons
caution
that the changes
grouped
under thisrubric"spread over threecenturiesishardlyrevolutionaryin

the ordinary sense of theword." Revolutionary
or not, it is clear that the
successes of plantation agriculturehelped tomodernize theEnglish

economy.25
In broad outline the history of rice-the
third great plantation
and the staple of the Carolina
the early British Empire
exhibits a pattern of price and production
and
then peaked
10,000 pounds
at more
Lowcountry
(see Figure 3) that resembles
rice industry grew rapidly at first,
the histories of sugar and tobacco. The

as it exported a mere
crop of
in 1698, reached 6.5 million by 1720,
than 43 million
in 1740 before
entering a
decade of stagnationand decline.A reliableprice series is unavailable

before the 1720s,but scatteredobservationssuggesta steady fall,indi
cating thatproductivity
gainshelped fuel the initialexpansion.Produc
tivitygains permittedlowerprices,whichmade rice competitivewith
other grains,
leading
to a substantial
of consumption
expansion
and
markets.
As with sugar and tobacco, rice productivity
bination of improvements
increases reflect a com
shared with other crops and some that were
crop specific.Rice plantersshared thebenefitsof thegeneraldecline in

in shippingthroughouttheempire.
interestratesand the improvements
They also gained by the shift toAfrican
of Africans with rice cultivation
nology
African
to the Lowcountry
slaves, although
rice industry suggest
labor force brought bigger improvements
to those who
the familiarity
and the introduction of African
raised other crops. As with tobacco,
tivitygains in rice seems to have been a combination
tech
that the shift to an

to rice planters
than
the source of produc

of numerous minor
improvements.
The "cultureof rice" in theregion,David Ramsay noted,
"has been in a state of constant progressive
shifted first from the moist uplands
tidewater; as complex
improvement"
as production
to inland swamps and later to the
irrigation systems were
better suited to local conditions, were planted;
built; as new varieties,

and as the cleaning pro
cesswas mechanized.26
Recently
a team of economic
sas, Peter Mancall,
historians
Joshua Rosenbloom,
from the University
and Thomas Weiss,
of Kan
raised chal
324
2007
Plantation Empire
20
100000000
.............. ------------------- ---- ---------.....

--18 ..-..................
--.---..................
.....-.--.---.-.-.---.---.----
16...... .....
....
.. ... .
.............
............
,
14.
--
12 -
-.-Wholesale
W.
pnce
ofnce at
in
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Charlestown
shillings
percwt
*
10
.E
:3
lX
ffi||
ll
P I
-10000000
=
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0
.
. . . Lower
Southnce
exportsinpounds
6~
.. ......
............
.................
................
2- ..............
.................................................................................
4.
-1000000
of the Lower South, 1716-1776. Sources: Converse D.

Figure 3. The Rice Industry
Clowse, EconomicBeginningsinColonialSouth Carolina (Columbia:University
ofSouth
Carolina
Press,
United
States,
1971),
Colonial
US
232-35;
Bureau
to 1970,
Times
1197; Arthur H. Cole, Wholesale
of the Census,
2 vols.
Commodity
Historical
(Washington,
Prices
Statistics
DC: GPO,
in the United
1975),
States,
of the
1:1192,
1700-1861
Press, 1938), 15-68. Priceswere reduced to sterling

(Cambridge:HarvardUniversity
using
the exchange
America,
1978),
rates
183-86,
222-24;
the Atlantic Economy:

Trade,
and Power:
Jack P. Greene,
South
Carolina
in John J. McCusker,
A Handbook
1600-1775:
Stephen
Patterns
G. Hardy,
of Trade,
The Evolution
Rosemary
Press,
lenges to the notion
2001),
in Europe
of North Carolina
and Growth,
Rice
and
Press,
Industry and
inMoney,
1715-1775,"
South
Carolina's
Plantation
Society,
and Randy
J. Sparks
(Columbia:
University of
ed.
125-28.
that the Lowcountry
ductivity gains. Relying
and Exchange
"Colonial South Carolina's
Shipping,
of Colonial
Brana-Shute,
Money
Hill: University
(Chapel
rice industry witnessed
heavily on highly aggregated
estimates
pro
of ex
ports per capita and on prices for land and labor, they concluded
that
"long-runproductivity
improvements"
inLowcountryagriculture"were
325
Agricultural
History
Summer
at best, and may have been negative." A
modest
argument
central prop
is the stability of slave prices over the colonial
in their
era. However,
as they admit,
the relatively elastic supply of labor to the region in the long-run
meant thatincreasesin laborproductivity

were temporary,
thefinding
of no trend in the real price of slaves over the course of the 18th
century does not rule out the possibility of improvements
factor productivity. It simply means
in total
that if there were any such ad
vances theywould have had to have been reflected in increases in the
pricesof other (less elasticallysupplied)factorsof production.

Then,
relying on data from Lee Soltow
that shows little rise in the price
that there were
of land, the team concluded
no productivity gains
in
Lowcountryagricultureor the rice industry.

Recently,however,a new
study of land prices reported that the real price of land in South Carolina
rose at nearly 1 percent per year over the period
1724 to 1767. Given
that rice prices fell in the face of rising input prices, the case for pro
ductivityadvances in theLowcountryrice industryremainsstrong.27

The evidence
perennial
presented
in this essay has implications for that hearty
the character of the planter class. As Michael
concerning
lin put the question:
"Were
the planters
neurs, that is, forward or backward

may have later become,
Rosa
capitalists
Mul
or medieval
looking?" However
seig
hidebound
they
themen who built (or "tore violently," as Miss
Coldfield might have put it) the sugar and tobacco colonies
in the
seventeenthcentury,and therebycreatedEngland's PlantationEmpire,

were clearly willing to take risks and experiment
if they thought itmight
improvetheirbottom line.Like theyoungThomas Buddenbrooks, they

seem as men who want
"to make money with both hands."28
To be fair we should note that Eugene
the leading advo
Genovese,
cate of the view that planters were backward

planters of the English Caribbean,
iers ...
nological
[who] gave
however,
where Genovese
did so label the
referring to them as "rent
little thought to the expansion
innovation, or tomeasures
of markets,
to overcome waste."
sugar industry, nor do they appear
to tech
I do not know
found such characters, but itwas not among
who built the colonial
that he
looking, protested
did not call the planters of the Old South seigneurs. He
the men
among
those
326
Plantation Empire
2007
nor theLowcountryrice
who built theChesapeake tobacco industry,
industryfor thatmatter.While defendersmight note thatGenovese's
main concernhas beenwith theplantersof theantebellumSouth,others
have been willing to extendhis generalizationback into theeighteenth
centuryand throughouttheAmericas. In thiscontext,it isworthnoting
Brazil-often described as the
thattheplantersof seventeenth-century
most atavisticplantocracyin theAmericas-who were subjected to the
same pressuresto reducecosts as theirEnglish counterparts,responded
with the same risk-taking,
experimentalapproach tomaking sugar.29
Another implicationof the argumentadvanced in thisessay is that
the livingstandardsof planters in the islandsand on themainland did
not declinewith the fallof stapleprices.While thereisplentyof anec
dotal evidence to support the proposition thatWest Indian planters
livedwell despite theprice decline, I have yet to findany systematic
quantitativeevidence on the issue.However, thereexist some data on
London exports to the colonies that suggest that in the 1680s,when
sugarpriceswere approachingtheirnadir,whiteBarbadianswere living
well by the standardsof colonialAmerica.30
ground.A recent
For theChesapeake colonieswe are onmuch firmer
studyof wealth based on probate inventoriesforSt.Mary's County,
Maryland,
found thatwealth per household
and per white capita grew at
impressiveratesfromtheearly1660s to theearly1700s, indicatingthat

planters in the regionmaintained healthy levels of profitdespite the
decline
of tobacco
I have not been
prices. Although
able
to estimate
wealth per capita,probate inventoriesin theLowcountryindicatethat

despite
planters thereprospered in theearlyyears of the rice industry
decedents rose from
tumbling
prices,as themean wealth of inventoried
?204 sterling in the late seventeenth
While
this essay provides
century to ?357 by the 1720s.31
support for those who see planters as hard
driving,risk-takingentrepreneurs,it has not settled the question of

or backward.While
whetherplanters as a classwere forward-looking
the character of the founding generation
seems clear, it is still possible
thata Buddenbrooks dynamicoperated in the severalplantationdis

tricts as the sons of the founders abandoned
the hard-driving ways of
theirfatherstopursue gentility.
AlthoughBuddenbrooks seems an ap
propriate analog
for the process, one might put it in Faulkner's
terms by
saying that the planter class started out as Sutpens, but gradually, and
327
Summer
more completelytheirdescendants turnedthemselvesintoCompsons.

of theirfathersto live the
They set aside theambitiousentrepreneurship
culturedlifeof gentlemen.Perhaps thisdebate has persistedforso long
of the two positions
advocates
because
have focused on different gen
erationsof planters.32
NOTES
1. The
in
Canny, "The Origins of Empire, an Introduction,"
The
British
the
British
Volume
I,
of
Empire,
Origins
of Empire:
to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, ed. Nicholas
Canny
(New
University Press, 2001), 3; Carla Pestana, The English Atlantic in an Age of
is from Nicholas
quotation
The Oxford History

Overseas
Enterprise
York:
Oxford
provides
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 14. Pesta?a
is a large literature on this
survey of those settlements in the 1640s. There
The Oxford History of the British Empire
cited above,
but from my perspective,
1640-1661
Revolution,
an excellent
process,
Robert
Merchants
Brenner,
Overseas
London's
John J.McCusker
Commercial
Change, Political Conflict, and

Princeton
University Press, 1993), and
(Princeton:
R. Menard,
The Economy
1607-1789
of British America,
and Revolution:
Traders,
1550-1653
and Russell
to start.
of North Carolina
Press, 1985) are good places
(Chapel Hill: University
in greater detail
2. The growth of the Chesapeake
tobacco
industry is described
Russell
R. Menard,
Research
Interpretation,"
and
its financing,
see, Russell
in Early
tion Agriculture

in Economic
History 5 (Jan. 1980):
"The Tobacco
3. I am here
R. Menard,
mercial
under
Sweet Negotiations:
the sugar boom
Slavery,
and Planta
of Virginia Press, 2006).

University
(Charlottesville:
who
and Revolution,
the argument of Brenner, Merchants
played
the Commonwealth
figure in Brenner's Merchants

issue. Nicholas
is a controversial
a leading
government.
policy
B. Sheridan, Sugar
gotiations, and Richard
Johns Hopkins
Indies, 1623-1775
(Baltimore:
the central
Sugar,
in
An
Barbados
following
that colonial, merchants
demonstrates
Colonies,
109-77. On
1617-1730:
role
in shaping
On Noell,
and Slavery:
foreign and com

Sweet Ne
see, Menard,
Economic
University Press,
and Revolution.
History
of the West
is
1974), 92-95. Thompson
interested in the rise of a

Canny, who ismore
to the Act
identity than of an empire, would date the origins of the British Empire
in 1707 and the publication
of Union
of England
and Scotland
of John Oldmixon's,
The
J.
in
British Empire
inAmerica
the
Nicholson,
following year. Canny, The
(London:
1708)
4. This
British
1:25. Since my concern iswith structure rather than

Oxford History of the British Empire,
will
in
I
this
identity,
complex question by simply using the term English Empire
sidestep
for the eighteenth century.
the seventeenth
century, reserving the term British Empire
and me, dates the
splitting the difference, as it were, between Canny
to the end of the Dutch
of
the
emergence
empire to the mid-1670s,
pointing in particular
structure to enforce the Navigation
the creation of an administrative
Wars,
Acts, and the
as a permanent office for colonial administration
of the Lords of Trade
in
establishment
Ian K.
1675.
and
Steele,
Ian K.
Trade
Steele,
(New
The English
Oxford
York:
and Trade
Expansion
the British Empire,
1:410.
"Overseas
Atlantic,
1675-1740:
Press,
University
in the Seventeenth
An Exploration
1986),
36-37,
Century,"
of Communication
230; Nuala
Zahedieh,
in The Oxford History
328
of
2007
Plantation Empire
5. Charles
M.
The Colonial
Andrews,
and Colonial
mercial
role of Thompson
Period
(New Haven:
Policy
in writing
and Noell
Yale
of American
History:
Press,
University
the firstNavigation
Com
England's
1938),
4:36-37.
On
the
see, ibid., 56.
Act,
6.W. A.
in Colonial British America:

Speck, "The International and Imperial Context,"
in
New
the
the
Modern
ed.
Jack
P. Greene
and J. R. Pole
Era,
Essays
Early
History of
Johns Hopkins
from
Press, 1984), 385-86. For crown revenue
(Baltimore:
University
see, Edmund
tobacco,
Colonial
S. Morgan, American
Freedom:
The Ordeal
Slavery, American
of
(New York: Norton,
1975), 197-98. The revenues from sugar are esti
in Figure 1 and Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 50-53, 495.
Virginia
from data
mated
is a large literature on the Navigation

Acts. The classic work is Lawrence
The English Navigation
Laws: A Seventeenth-Century
in Social En
Experiment
gineering (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1939). John McCusker
provides a brief,
7. There
Harper,
in "British Mercantilist
summary
elegant
Policies
and
the American
in The
Colonies,"
Economic
History of the United States, Volume I, The Colonial Era, ed. Stanley
and Robert E. Gallman
Press, 1996),
(New York: Cambridge
University
and Menard,
46-50.
also, McCusker
Economy
of British America,
Cambridge
L. Engerman
337-62. See,
8. John McCusker
and
(May
Leeward
9. Menard,
Press,
Islands,
1650-1680,"
Sweet Negotiations,
10. Adam
R. H.
on the burdens
the old debate
Sawyers, "The Navigation

1992): 262-84. Planter complaints
J. Koot,
'"A Dangerous
Principle':
Christian
English
that the colonists
of British America.
in Larry
reviewed
45
the. case
I make
in The Economy
bership in the Empire

might wish to review
Smith, An
A.
Inquiry
S. Skinner,
Campbell,
1976), 2:613. There
Acts
about
in this issue
Acts, which
Economic
Revisited,"
Studies
Sugar
5 (Spring 2007):
and Slavery,
and Causes
is ably
History Review
are discussed
in
the Navigation
Acts
Discourses
in Barbados
Early American
68; Sheridan,
is, of course,
of the Navigation
from their mem
interested
Free Trade
Into theNature
and W.
benefited
Readers
and
the
132-63.
36.
of theWealth
ed.
of Nations,
B. Todd, 2 vols. (1776; repr., Oxford: Clarendon
a large literature on mercantilism.
The best intro
to the subject are two essays by John McCusker,

both of which contain annotated
"British Mercantilist
Policies and the American
Colonies"
See, McCusker,
bibliographies.
ductions
and McCusker,
3
in The Encyclopedia
Colonies,
of theNorth American
Scribner's Sons, 1993), 1:459-65. The tension
(New York: Charles
and that of John McCusker
ismore apparent
interpretation of mercantilism
"Mercantilism,"
vols., ed. Jacob Cooke

between
my
than real and

the state were
contends that the fiscal interests of

largely a matter of emphasis. McCusker
the core of mercantilism.
This is correct, but I would
add that the fiscal
interests of the state often gave merchants

since merchants
primary
source
considerable
controlled
the trades that generated

of credit whenever
the state needed
influence over commercial

revenues. They were
to borrow.
customs
policy,
also the
11. Examples
in the literature. For one case out of
of this type of explanation
abound
in the sugar industry, see, Elizabeth
Fox-Genovese
and Eugene D. Genovese,
The
many
Fruits of Merchant
and Bourgeois
Property in the Rise and Expansion
of
University Press, 1983), 45. For such an argument applied
American
Freedom.
Slavery, American
Capital:
Capitalism
(New York:
to tobacco,
see, Morgan,
Slavery
Oxford
charges on sugar, see, Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 50-53. For tobacco,
"The Tobacco
and the Treasury,
1685-1733: British Mercan
Trade
tilism in its Fiscal Aspects"
(PhD diss., Harvard University,
1954).
12. For customs
see, Jacob M.
Price,
329
13. Thomas
R. Baldwin,
Tyron, The Way

127-28.
to Long
Summer
Life and Happiness
(London:
Printed
by H. C. for
1691),
surveyed recent work on early American

agriculture in Russell R. Menard,
in The Economy
America's
Mestizo
Agriculture,"
of Early America: Historical
14. I have
"Colonial
Perspectives
and New Directions,
University,
2006),
107-23.
essays
on
15. My
assembled
inRussell
ed. Cathy Matson
the transition
R. Menard,
to a
Migrants,
Park: Pennsylvania
(University
force dominated
labor
and Slaves:
Servants,
by African
Unfree Labor
State
slaves
are
in Colonial
S. Walsh,
"Slave Life, Slave
(Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate,
2001). Lorena
in the Tidewater
and Tobacco
Production
in Cultivation
1620-1820,"
Chesapeake,
British America
Society,
and Culture:
Morgan
and
the Shaping
(Charlottesville:
Labor
University
2000),
literature on slave prices, which is ably introduced inDavid

Slavery in the Americas
University
of African
53, 293-97.
On
the Newton
estate,
Black Women
History
of Enslaved
Press, 1989) and Jerome S. Handler
bados:
and Philip
is a growing
16. There
The Rise
ed. Ira Berlin

of Slave Life in theAmericas,
Press of Virginia,
1993), 170-203.
An Archaeological
see, Hilary
in Barbados
Natural
Rebels:
Social
Brunswick:
and Frederick
and Historical
Beckles,
Eltis,
Press,
Rutgers University
Plantation
Slavery in Bar
Harvard
(Cambridge:
University
(New
W. Lange,
Investigation
and Bishops:
see, J.Harry Bennett, Bondsmen
1978). On Codrington,
Slavery and
on the Codrington Plantations
1790-1838
of Barbados,
Apprenticeship
(Berkeley: Univer
Press,
sity of California
Press,
1958).
shipping costs, see, Russell

1300-1800, Was There a European
The Political Economy
ofMerchant
On
R. Menard,
"Transport Costs and Long Range Trade,

Revolution'
in the Early Modern
in
Era?"
'Transport
ed.
Empires: State Power and World Trade, 1350-1750,
James Tracy
is a large
Press, 1991), 228-75. There
University
in commercial
The impact of those changes on
literature on improvements
organization.
colonial
trades is evident in the substantial decline in the commissions merchants
charged
to handle
planters'
business.
See, Menard,
Sweet Negotiations,
77-78.
in detail inMenard,
Sweet Negotia
changes in the sugar industry are discussed
Rum: A
tions, 67-90. On rum, see the recent study by Frederick H. Smith, Caribbean
These
Press of Florida,
and Economic
History
(Gainesville:
University
2005). My argu
that the Caribbean
sugar industry was characterized
by impressive productivity gains
finds strong support in a recent article by David
Eltis, Frank D. Lewis, and David Rich
Social
ment
"Slave
ardson,
1807," Economic
17. Menard,
Prices,
the African
History
Review
Sweet Negotiations,
Slave Trade,
53 (Nov.
2005):
and Productivity
673-700.
in the Caribbean,
1674
67-90.
tobacco
here, is ex
interpretation
industry, summarized
in detail inMenard,
"The Tobacco
1617
Colonies,
plained
1730: An Interpretation," Research
in Economic History 5 (Jan. 1980): 109-77, and in Lois
Greene
and Lorena
S. Walsh, Robert Cole's World: Agriculture
Carr, Russell R. Menard,
18. My
and Society
of the Chesapeake
in Early Maryland
Press, 1991). It
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
and
for
from
of Maryland
the
so,
criticized,
rightly
over-generalizing
experience
oronocco
the Parts: Implications
for Esti
S. Walsh,
See, Lorena
producers.
"Summing
and Income Subregionally,"
William
and Mary Quarterly 36
mating Chesapeake
Output
has been
on most of the points she raises, my

I would defer toWalsh
(Jan. 1999): 53-94. While
of
the
evidence
is
that
the
that
the
in the
argument
reading
seventeenth-century
expansion
330
2007
Plantation Empire
tobacco
industry occurred because producers captured productivity gains (that permitted

them to lower prices) describes the process in all three of the regions thatWalsh
identifies.
to improved produc
contributed
Indeed, it could be argued that regional specialization
tivity.
19. For
the Chesapeake
and Walsh, Robert
see, Carr, Menard,
system of husbandry,
and Lois Green Carr and Russell R. Menard,
"Land, Labor, and Economies
Cole's World,
of Scale
in Early Maryland:
bandry,"
Journal
Some
of Economic
Limits
History
to Growth
49 (June 1989):
in the Chesapeake
407-18.
System
of Hus
of my colleagues
have reminded me that slavery is not the only case where
In modern
of labor productivity
is problematic.
economies
increases in labor
of nominally
free, but
productivity often seem to be the result of greater exploitation
20. Several
the notion
vulnerable,
workers.
21. Menard,
Tobacco
"A
Industry," 150. See, also, Russell R. Menard,
"Chesapeake
on Chesapeake
Tobacco
Prices, 1618-1660,"
Virginia Magazine
of History and Bi
Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 72-73; J. T. Rogers, A
ography 84 (Oct. 1976): 401-10.
and
Prices
in England:
From the First Year After the Oxford Par
History of Agriculture
Note
liament
to the Commencement
(1259)
Clarendon
Press,
22. Carole
Clarendon
1886-1902),
The Pre-Industrial
Shammas,
Press,
of the Continental
War
(1793),
1 vols.
(Oxford:
6:441-48.
Consumer
in England
and America
(Oxford:
1990), 79, 82.
23. For changing patterns of sugar consumption

in England,
see, Sidney Mintz, Sweet
ness and Power: The Place of Sugar inModern History
(New York: Viking,
1985). For
inHistory: The Cultures of Dependence
Tobacco
tobacco, see, Jordan Goodman,
(New
York:
Routledge,
24.
1993).
and Russell
R. Menard,
The Economy
of British America,
of North Carolina
Press, 1985), 54,136,
154,172. On
(Chapel Hill: University
from Britain, I am following the estimate of James Horn, "The British Diaspora:
migration
in The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol
from Britain, 1680-1816,"
Emigration
ume II, The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall
Press,
(Oxford: Oxford University
I am following the estimate of Philip Curtin, The
1998), 28-52. For African migration,
John J. McCusker
1607-1789
Atlantic
Slave
with a modest
Trade:
A Census
increase
to account
(Madison: University
for slaves delivered
"The British Empire and the Atlantic

of the British Empire, 2:440-64.
Richardson,
History
of Wisconsin
to the mainland
Slave Trade,
Press,
1969), 116-19,
and David
colonies,
1660-1807,"
in The Oxford
is a large literature on England's

foreign trade in the seventeenth century.
in the Seventeenth
key articles are F. J. Fisher, "London's
Export Trade
Century,"
Economic
Review
3:2
and
History
(1950): 151-61,
Ralph Davis,
"English Foreign Trade,
of the most important
Economic
1660-1700,"
History Review 7:2 (1954): 150-66. Many
25. There
The
articles are assembled
inW.
E. Minchinton,
Trade in
ed., The Growth of English Overseas
"Overseas
1969), while Zahedieh,
(London: Methuen,
Expan
in the Seventeenth Century," provides an excellent overview. On shipping,
sion and Trade
The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eigh
see, Ralph Davis,
teenth Centuries
(Newton Abbot, England: David & Charles,
1962), 15. For the commer
the lTh and 18th Centuries
cial and financial

A
Study
Henry
The Financial Revolution

in England:
Credit, 1688-1756
of Public
(London: Macmillan,
1967),
The Financial
1660-1760
Revolution,
(London: Longman,
1991), and
revolutions,
see, P. G. M. Dickson,
in the Development
Roseveare,
331
Jacob Price
"A Revolution
and Paul Clemons,
in the Chesapeake
Trade,
Journal
1675-1775,"
in Scale
Summer
in Overseas
of Economic
Trade:
British Firms
47 (Mar. 1987): 1-43.

in theAmericas
of Rice Cultivation
History
26. Judith Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins

The History of South Caro
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); David Ramsay,
lina: From
itsFirst Settlement in 1670 to the Year 1808, 2 vols. (Charleston: David
Long
in the early days of the industry, see, S.
worth, 1809), 2:206. On rice cultivation methods
Max
Plantation
in Colonial
South Carolina
Harvard
Edelson,
Enterprise
(Cambridge:
of Market Agriculture
in
University Press, 2006), and David L. Coon, "The Development
South Carolina,
1670-1785"
of Illinois, 1972).
(PhD diss., University
27. Peter C. Mancall,
and Thomas Weiss,
Joshua L. Rosenbloom,
"Agricultural Labor
in the Lower
Productivity
South,
1720-1800,"
2002): 390-424; Mancall,

in the Lower
Growth
South,
in Economic
History 39 (Oct.
Estimates
of Economic
Explorations
and Weiss,
Rosenbloom,
"Conjectural
in History Matters:
to 1800,"
in Economic
Essays
and Demographic
ed. Timothy W. Guinnane, William
A.
Technology,
Change,
Sandstrom, and Warren Whatle
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004), 389-424. For
B. Ryden
the recent estimate of land prices, see, David
and Russell R. Menard,
"South
1720
Growth,
Carolina's
Land Market:
Colonial
28. Michael
can South
Mullin,
and
Africa
the Caribbean,
is an old debate,
This
in Peter Kolchin,
The
York:
and
American
are
quotations
House,
An Analysis
29 (Winter 2005):
cial Science History
of Rural
Property
Sales,
inAmerica:
Slave Acculturation
and Resistance
in theAmeri
of Illinois Press,
(Urbana: University
there is, of course, a large literature, which is ably
1736-1831
Slavery,
from William
1936), 9, and Thomas Mann,

Vintage,
1984), 220-21.
So
1720-1776,"
599-623.
1618-1877
Faulkner,
1992), 115.
introduced
(New York: Hill and Wang,

1993), 278-82.
Absalom
York:
Random
Absalom,
(New
Buddenbrooks,
H. T. Porter,
trans. (1902;
repr., New
in Interpre
Two Essays
The World
the Slaveholders Made:
29. Eugene D. Genovese,
tation (Middletown: Wesleyan
30.
for
Robin
Black
Press,
See,
University
1988),
example,
burn, The Overthrow of Colonial
Slavery, 1776-1848
(New York: Verso,
1988), 36-37, and
to theModern,
The Making
1492
Blackburn,
of New World Slavery: From the Baroque
1800 (New York: Verso,
1997). On the Brazilian
planters,
in the Formation
Plantations
of Brazilian
Society, Bahia,
see, Stuart B. Schwartz,

1550-1835
(New York:
Sugar
Cam
bridge University Press, 1985).

of the anecdotal
evidence
30. Much
on Barbadian
wealth in the decades
following the
in Larry Gragg, Englishmen
The English
Transplanted:
York:
For
Barbados
Oxford
the import
Colonization
Press, 2003).
of
(New
University
and
Trade
in
the
"Overseas
Seventeenth
1:415.
data, see, Zahedieh,
Expansion
Century,"
sugar boom
is ably assembled
31. Lois Green
R. Menard,
in Early Maryland:
"Wealth and Welfare
and Mary Quarterly 56 (Jan. 1999): 95-120;
County," William
and Social Development
"Economic
of the South," in The Cambridge
I:
Volume
The
the
United
Colonial
Era, 3 vols., ed. Stanley L.
States,
of
Carr
and Russell
from St. Mary's
Evidence
R. Menard,
Russell
Economic
History
and Robert E. Gallman
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1:278.
Engerman
32. There
is a large literature on planters; a good place to start is James Oakes,
The
Slaveholders
Ruling Race: A History of American
(New York: Knopf,
1982).
332

Plantation Empire - How Sugar and Tobacco Planters Built Their Industries and Raised An Empire

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Plantation Empire - How Sugar and Tobacco Planters Built Their Industries and Raised An Empire

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Plantation Empire: How Sugar and Tobacco Planters Built Their Industries and Raised an Empire

Author(s): Russell R. Menard

Plantation Empire:How Sugar and Tobacco

This essay develops an American approach to the rise of theEnglish At

As NICHOLASCANNYHAS NOTED, the number of Englishmerchants

small, and "the modest

isprofessorof historyat theUniversityofMinnesota. Earlier

of this essay were

involvement of the English

to the annual meeting

of the Early Modern

HistoryCenter at theUniversityofMinnesota inSeptember2005; and to theMinnesota

at all those presentations,

with overseas venturesreflectsa generallylow levelof communalinter

distinctsettlementsinEnglishAmerica in the 1640s had appeared op

consideredpolicy.By themiddle of theseventeenthcentury,however,

things started to change. There were

trades, and more

than a few of them were

policy was beginning

the early stages of the rise of an English Atlantic

to take shape. These

firsttentativesteps towardtheconstructionof theFirstBritishEmpire,

transform theNorth Atlantic

thing like an English

there is a large and rich literature on these processes, most of

the rise of the British Empire

and the English Atlantic

froman Englishmetropolitanperspective.This essay approaches the

nor the English Atlantic

can be explained without attending

to the productivity gains achieved

by tobacco and sugar planters-which

them to sell their prod

ucts at lower prices, thus bringing their products within

fueled the expansion

resulting market growth for plantation

of the English Atlantic.

the forces behind

the emerging English

tation crops, sugar and tobacco,

the first great commercial

England's ventures into theAmericas. English importsof Chesapeake

(a rough proxy for production)

half of the seventeenth

expanded mightily over the first

century (see Figure

1). Starting at just over one

thousandpounds in1616, tobacco importshoveredaround ten thousand

by 1630, and over a million

got their sugar from Brazil

by 1640. In the early seventeenth

of the 1640s, financed

all that. By the 1650s England

roughly fifty thousand pounds

sterling on the London

ships and thousands of seamen

and sugar trades had become

and attracting the interests of some of

the country's richest merchants.2

Laws, which gave the emerging empire a formal

structure and clear policy, were written