Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-18T13:59:29.464Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Was Ecomomic Growth Likely in Colonial British North America?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Peter C. Mancall  and
Thomas Weiss
Peter C. Mancall
Affiliation:
Peter C. Mancall is Professor, Department of History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045-2113.
Thomas Weiss
Affiliation:
Thomas Weiss is professor, Department of Economics, University of Kansas; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research; and Executive Director, Economic History Association.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that output per capita in colonial British America increased between 0.3 and 0.6 percent per year. Our conjectural estimates challenge this view, suggesting instead that such growth was unlikely. We show that the most likely rate of economic growth was much lower, probably close to zero. We argue further that to understand the performance of the colonial economy it is necessary to include the economic activity of Native American Indians. When this is done, we estimate that the economy may have grown at the rate suggested by previous researchers.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 17 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ball, Duane, and Walton, Gary. “Agricultural Productivity Change in Eighteenth Century Pennsylvania.” this JOURNAL. 36, no. 1 (1976): 102–17.Google Scholar
Baron, Donna, J. Hood, Edward, and V. Izard, Holly. “They Were Here All Along: The Native American Presence in Lower-Central New England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., 53 (1996) 561–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonvillain, Nancy. “Gender Relations in Native North America.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 13, no. 2(1989): 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bridenbaugh, Carl. Cities in the Wilderness: the First Century of Urban Life in America. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1938.Google Scholar
Brown, Kathleen M. “The Anglo-Algonquian Gender Frontier.” In Negotiators of Change:Historical Perspectives on Native American Women, edited by Shoemaker, Nancy, 29–31. New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Butlin, N. G. “Contours of the Australian Economy.” Australian Economic History Review 26, no. 2 (1986): 96–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choquette, Leslie. “Recruitment of French Emigrants to Canada, 1600–1760.” In “To Make America”: European Emigration in the Early Modern Period, edited by Altman, Ida and Horn, James, 131–71. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Gregory. “Too Much Revolution: Agriculture in the Industrial Revolution, 1700– 1860.” In The British industrial Revolution: An Economic Assessment. 2d ed., edited by Mokyr, Joel. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Cronon, William. Changes in The Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.Google Scholar
Daniels, John D. “The Indian Population of North America in 1492.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., 49 (1992): 298–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
David, Paul. “New Light on a Statistical Dark Age: U.S. Real Product Growth Before 1840.” American Economic Review 57, no. 2 (1967): 294–306.Google Scholar
David, Paul. “The Growth of Real Product in the United States Before 1840: New Evidence, Controlled Conjectures.” this JOURNAL 27, no. 2 (1967): 151–97.Google Scholar
Egnal, Marc. “The Economic Development of the Thirteen Continental Colonies, 1720 to 1775.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 32 (1975): 191–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egnal, Marc. New World Economies. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engerman, Stanley, and Gallman, Robert. “Economic Growth 1783 to 1860.” Research in Economic History 8 (1981): 1–46.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert, and Engerman, Stanley. Time on the Cross. New York: Norton, 1974.Google Scholar
Franklin, Benjamin. “Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c.,” In Papers of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Labaree, Leonard, et al., Vol. 4: 227–34. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Gallman, Robert. “Estimates of American National Product Made Before the Civil War.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 9, no. 3 (1961): 397–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallman, Robert. “Gross National Product in the United States, 1834–1909.” In Studies in Income and Wealth 30, New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1966.Google Scholar
Gallman, Robert. “The Statistical Approach: Fundamental Concepts Applied to Histoty.” In Approaches to American Economic History, edited by Taylor, G. R. and Ellsworth, L. F., 63–86. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1971.Google Scholar
Gallman, Robert. “American Economic Growth Before the Civil War: The Testimony of the Capital Stock Estimates.” In American Economic Growth and Standards of Living Before the Civil War, edited by Gallman, R. and Wallis, J., 79–115. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallman, Robert. “Can We Build National Accounts for the Colonial Period of American History.” In The Economy ofColonial British America: The Domestic Sector. Proceedings of the conference at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, in 10, 1995, edited by John, J. McCusker, 109–28.Google Scholar
Hanson, John R., II. “The Economic Development of the Thirteen Colonies, 1720 to 1775: A Critique.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., 37 (1980): 165–72Google Scholar
Henretta, James. “Families and Farms: Mentalité in Pre-industrial America.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., 35 (1978): 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Alice Hanson. Wealth of a Nation to Be. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Klepp, Susan. “Seasoning and Society: Racial Differences in Mortality in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., 51 (1994): 481–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulikoff, Allan. “The Transition to Capitalism in Rural America.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd Ser., 46 (1989): 120–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznets, Simon. National Product since 1869. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1946.Google Scholar
Kuznets, Simon “Long Term Changes in the National Income of the United States of America since 1870.” In Income and Wealth of the United States, Trends and Structure, Income and Wealth Series 2, pp. 221–41. Baltimore: International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, 1952.Google Scholar
Mancall, Peter C.Valley of Opportunity: Economic Culture along the Upper Susquehanna, 1700–1800. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Mancall, Peter C., and Weiss, Thomas. “Conjectural Estimates of Domestic Output in Colonial America.” In The Economy of Colonial British America: The Domestic Sector. Proceedings of the conference at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, in 10, 1995, edited by McCusker, John J., 129–62.Google Scholar
Peter C., Mancall, and Weiss, Thomas. “Contours of the Indian Economy of Colonial Mainland British America,” mimeo, University of Kansas, 1997.Google Scholar
McCusker, John, and Menard, Russell. The Economy of British America, 1607–1789. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Metzer, Jacob. “Two Peoples in One Countiy: A Comparative Look at the Economic Record and Socio-Economic Profile of Mandatory Palestine,” (mimeo) Paper presented at the International Economic Association Eleventh World Congress, Tunis, 12 1995.Google Scholar
North, Douglass. The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860. New York: Prentice Hall, 1961.Google Scholar
North, Douglass. “Sources of Productivity Change in Ocean Shipping, 1600–1850.” Journal of Political Economy 76, no. 5 (1968): 953–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Brien, Jean. Dispossession by Degrees: Indian Land and Identity in Natick, Massachusetts, 1650–1720. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothenberg, Winifred. From Market Places to a Market Economy: The Transformation of Rural Massachusetts, 1750–1850. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Shammas, Carole. “Defining and Measuring Output and the Workforce in Early America.” In The Economy of Colonial British America. The Domestic Sector. Proceedings of the conference at the Huntington Libraiy, San Marino, CA, in 10, 1995, edited by McCusker, John J., 235–58.Google Scholar
Shepherd, James, and Walton, Gary. Shipping, Maritime Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Silver, Timothy. A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Smith, Abbot. Colonists in Bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America, 1607–1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947.Google Scholar
Taylor, George R. “American Economic Growth Before 1840: An Exploratory Essay.” this JOURNAL 24, no. 4 (1964): 427–44.Google Scholar
Towne, Marvin, and Rasmussen, Wayne. “Farm Gross Product and Gross Investment in the Nineteenth Century.” In Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Tryon, Rolla. Household Manufactures in the United States. New York: Augustus M. Kelley Publishers, 1966.Google Scholar
Ubelaker, Douglas H. “North American Indian Population Size: Changing Perspectives.” In Disease and Demography in the Americas, edited by Verano, John W. and Ubelaker, Douglas H., 169–76. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992.Google ScholarPubMed
U.S. Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1975.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Circular (#641). “Fuel wood Used in the United States, 1630–1930.” Washington, DC: GPO, 1942.Google Scholar
Wallis, John. “Notes on the Measurement of Economic Activity in the Colonial Period.” In The Economy of Colonial British America: The Domestic Sector. Proceedings of the conference at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, in 10, 1995, edited by McCusker, John J., 3–24.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas. “U.S. Labor Force Estimates and Economic Growth, 1800 to 1860.” In American Economic Growth and Standards of Living Before the Civil War. edited by Gallman, R. and Wallis, J., 19–78. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas. “Long-term Changes in U.S. Agricultural Output per Worker, 1800–1900.” Economic History Review 46, no. 2 (1993): 324–41.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas. “Economic Growth Before 1860: Revised Conjectures.” In American Economic Development in Historical Perspective, edited by Weiss, T. and Schaefer, D., 11–27. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Michael. Americans and Their Forests: A Historical Geography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar