France. Their possessions contained at this time about 1,000,000 negroes and less than 200,000 whites.1

We have seen that one of the reasons why the rice and cotton plantations of the South Carolina-Georgia coastal plain furnished a better market for the agricultural products of New England than did the Chesapeake lowlands was that the distance separating the plantations from the backcountry was greater in the former case than in the latter. In a certain sense it might be said that in the West India islands there was no back-country. That is, there was no sharply defined region where the commercial products could not be raised; no uplands occupied by farmers carrying on a general agriculture and selling food supplies to the planters.2 But this is far from saying that the whole of the arable area was given over to the cultivation of the staples. The statistics given for Jamaica in 1791 show that of the 1,740,000 acres in that island under cultivation, only 767,000 were in sugar plantations, whereas an almost equal area, 700,000 acres, was used for breeding and grazing farms and 350,000 acres for raising the minor staples and provisions.3 In Hispaniola, now called Haiti, there were in 1790, 793 sugar plantations, 789 of cotton, 3,117 of coffee, 3,160 of indigo and 623 smaller farms where yams, grain and other provisions were grown. More significant, however, for we must remember that the farms were much smaller in acreage than the plantations, is the fact that even on the latter, a considerable area was given over to the pasturing of cattle and horses.5

4

Between the years 1790-1810 there had undoubtedly been much progress in the direction of specialization, especially in Jamaica." Edwards had written at the former date: "In most other states and kingdoms, the first object of agriculture is to raise food for the support of the inhabitants; but many of the rich productions of the West

1 Perhaps the most reliable figures for the English islands are those for 1791 given by Edwards, History, II. 2; Whites, 65,305; blacks, 455,684. For the French islands a summary of various censuses, 1776–1786, quoted by Morse, Gazetteer, 1810, gives a total of 63,682 whites and 437,736 blacks.

2 There were highlands in the interior of many of the islands but these were so heavily wooded as to be inaccessible. See Edwards, History, I. 248-249. 3 Ibid. I. 248.

4 Ibid., III. 142–143.

5 Edwards estimates that on a plantation of 900 acres, two-thirds of the land would be pasturage and woodland. Op. cit., I. 248.

"The negro insurrection in Haiti, 1791-1801, checked the progress of the industry in a large part of that island.

Indies yield a profit so much beyond what can be obtained from grain that in several of the sugar islands, it is true economy in the planter, rather to buy provisions from others, than to raise them by his own labor. The produce of a single acre of his cane fields, will purchase more Indian corn than can be raised on five times that extent of land, and pay besides the freight from other countries. Thus not only their household furniture, their implements of husbandry, their clothing, but even a great part of their daily sustenance, are regularly sent them from America or Europe." The increase in the output of the staples and the growth of population are both evidences of this tendency to a more and more commercialized agriculture.2

By 1810 a large part of the timber products and food-stuffs consumed in the British islands was imported from the United States.3 In the years 1801-1803 the average annual amounts of the principal commodities imported were: Corn, 500,000 bu.; bread and flour, 233,000 bbls.; Indian meal, 28,000 bbls.; beef and pork, 36,000 bbls.; fish (dried) 50,000 quintals; fish (fresh) 23,000 bbls. Of timber and timber products, there were annually imported from the United States: pine boards, 27,000,000 feet; 36,000,000 shingles; 12,000,000 staves; and 10,000 tons of miscellaneous timber. The value of these commomodities and others, such as live stock, horses, mules, dairy products and vegetables shipped from ports of the United States to the possessions of France, England, Spain, Denmark and Sweden in these islands in the ten years, 1802-1811, amounted on the average to $1,225,000 per year. In the first years of this period the annual export was considerably greater than the average, because of the

1 Edwards, History, II. 459.

2 Jedidiah, Morse, in The American Universal Geography. 6 ed. Boston. 1812. Vol. I., p. 666, estimates the increase in population in Jamaica at 100,000 in the period 1787-1811.

3 The importance which the West India colonists ascribed to this trade may be appreciated by reading some of the pamphlets of a political nature printed in London 1800-1810. In the discussion of the impending war and of the advantages to be gained by opening more widely the ports of the islands to the American trade, the dependence of the West Indies on the United States for food supplies is strongly emphasized. Three typical pamphlets of this sort are Brown, Alexander Campbell. Colony Commerce. London. (ca. 1790); Jordan, G. W., Claims of the British West India Colonists. London. 1804; and Medford, Macall. Oil without Vinegar, or British, American, and West Indian Interests

Considered. London. 1807.

4 These figures are obtained by division of the totals for the three years given by Medford, Oil without Vinegar, app. No. 2. He claims to have had them from official documents.

relaxation of many of the restrictions on the commerce of their colonies during the wars in which France and England were engaged. In the years 1807-1809, on the other hand, the figures fell much below the average, owing to the Embargo and Non-Intercourse laws then in effect. The figures for 1810, a normal year, were $1,229,308, corresponding quite closely with the average for the whole period.1

The pertinent question for the purposes of our essay is: What part of this sum represented the food products shipped from New England farms? In answering the question we must not be misled by the frequent references to the active trade carried on by the coast towns of Connecticut and Rhode Island with the West India islands. When we remember how small were the vessels employed (according to the terms of Jay's treaty of 1794 they were limited to 70 tons),2 and that they regularly made only two voyages each year, we are more likely to proceed with caution. Then there is to be considered the share in this trade which was carried from the ports of the Middle and Southern states, such as Philadelphia and Charleston. The superiority of the back-country of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia in the production of grain, especially of wheat, had been apparent as early as 1790.4 In fact, the seacoast towns of the New England states were continually importing flour and grain from the Middle and Southern states, partly for consumption and partly for re-export. On the other hand in the export of provisions, the three states of southern New England were at this time superior to any other group. They were credited with about one-half of the total

5

'These figures are taken from Seybert, Adam. Statistical Annals. Philadelphia. 1818. pp. 134 ff.

2 Hildreth, Richard. History of the United States, rev. ed. 6 vols. New York. 1877-1880. Vol. IV. 540.

This is the statement made by Jordan, G. W. Claims of Colonists. 90-91. The figures for the export of the principal grains, 1791–1792, given in Coxe,

'Governor Sullivan, of Massachusetts, wrote to President Jefferson in 1808: "The seaport towns are supported almost entirely by bread from the Southern and Middle States." Quoted in Adams, Henry. History of the United States. 1801-1817. 10 vols. New York. 1889-1891. Vol. IV., pp. 254–255.

exports of salted beef and pork, butter, cheese and lard, potatoes and onions; one-seventh of the hams and bacon and practically all of the fresh meat and live stock. For these products the West India islands formed the only foreign market. Assuming that the share of the New England states in this market remained constant in the next twenty years, we may form a rough estimate of the total amounts of their exports thither in 1810, by applying the proportions given above to the average annual exports of these products from the whole United States for the ten years, 1801–1810.1 According to this calculation, the three states under consideration would have been shipping about 960 tons of butter, 486 tons of cheese, 850 tons of lard, 9 tons of hams and bacon; of beef and pork together, 75,000 bbls., 22,160 head of live stock and 4,000 dozen of poultry.

Estimate of the Importance of these Markets.

For a comparison of the importance of each of the three markets, in the commercial towns, in the Southern states, and in the West Indies to the New England farmer we must rely on three criteria: (1) the size of the non-agricultural or specialized agricultural population in each region, (2) the extent of their dependence on outside sources of food supply, and (3) the amount of competition from other food-producing regions for the various markets. Tested in all these ways, the West Indian market seems to have been most important. The population to be supplied was from eight to ten times as large as in either of the other two regions; it was nearly as dependent on outside supplies of foodstuffs as were the commercial towns along the coast of New England, and more so than the rice and cotton plantations in South Carolina and Georgia; and, most important of all, it had no back-country of general agriculture. This last fact, however, does not mean that the New Englanders had a monopoly of

1 The average annual exports from the United States, 1801-1810, were as follows: Beef, 76,300 bbls;. pork, 59,000 bbls.; butter, 1,926,000 lbs.; cheese, 972,000 lbs.; lard, 1,700,000 lbs.; hams and bacon, 1,340,000 lbs.; potatoes, 70,000 bu.; cattle, 6,400 head; horses, 4,300; sheep, 7,760; hogs, 3,500; poultry, 4,000 dozen. All of these items, except the live stock show a considerable increase over the figures for 1791. This is especially noticeable in the figures for butter, cheese and lard, the totals for the three being over 200 per cent greater at the later date. The total of live stock had, on the other hand, decreased from 38,000 head (average for the years 1791-1794) to 22,000. This would seem to show that the farmers of New England were finding it more profitable to fatten and slaughter their stock at home and to give greater attention to dairy products as exports.

These figures are taken from Pitkin, Timothy. A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States of America. Hartford. 1816. pp. 89–129.

the market, for in supplying this as well as the market in the Southern states they had to meet the competition of the Middle states.

The importance to the inland towns of these markets, in the Southern states, and in the West Indies, as well as in the coast towns of southern New England, depended chiefly on two circumstances: (1) upon the size of the markets, i.e., the quantity of produce which they would absorb, and (2) upon their accessibility. The determining factor in the latter case was, of course, the cost of transportation. We have seen that the total amount of agricultural produce demanded by these various regions was not large. In order to estimate accurately what these markets meant to the inland farmers, we must go a step farther and determine, if possible, how the trade in farm products was distributed through the inland country. If equally distributed among the inland towns, this trade would have meant very little to any one of them; if carried on by the towns in only a few favored regions, it might have altered their economic situation considerably, but for the inland towns as a whole it would have had little significance.

In order to answer these questions fully, it is necessary to investigate the general conditions of internal trade in southern New England and especially the state of the transportation system. These matters will be taken up in the following chapter.