I am grateful to the Ohio University Research Committee for the financial support which made it possible for me to complete this study. For helpful comments and suggestions made at various stages, I am indebted to Roger L. Ransom and Thomas D. Willett. For the use of microfilms of the Public Record Office material footnoted in this study, I am indebted to the rare manuscript collections of Alderman Library of the University of Virginia.

¹ Taylor, George Rogers, “American Economic Growth Before 1840: An Exploratory Essay,” The Journal of Economic History, XXIV (Dec. 1964), 431.Google Scholar

² Price, Jacob M., “The Economic Growth of the Chesapeake and the European Market, 1697–1775,” The Journal of Economic History, XXIV (Dec. 1964), 497, 510.Google Scholar

³ Bureau, U.S. of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D.C., 1960), p. 766.Google Scholar

⁴ Admittedly, the selection of different end-points might yield a different estimated growth rate. For example, 1721–1725 to 1771–1775 comparisons indicate a growth rate of about 2.2 percent. However, these end-points tend to maximize the rate of growth of tobacco exports. An approach to estimating growth rates which is relatively unbiased by the selection of end-points is to estimate a least-squares regression equation reflecting the relationship E_t = E₁ (1 + r )^t where E_t denotes exports in time t, E_j denotes exports in some initial time period, t is elapsed time in years, and r is the rate of growth. When this is calculated for the 1721–1775 period, the result is approximately 1.8 percent, which is substantially less than the 2.2 percent that the endpoint to end-point method yields. For the 1738–1772 period, the regression estimate is about 1.5 percent, which is reasonably consistent with the 1.6 percent generated by the end-point technique. This suggests that the choice of end-points employed in this study, which was constrained by data limitations, imparts little bias to growth estimates for the interval 1738–1772.

⁶ Historical Statistics of the United States, p. 766.

⁷ The economy of Virginia warrants scrutiny if only because so many of the colonists lived there. In 1770 approximately 20 percent of the total American population lived in Virginia. The population of Virginia equaled that of Pennsylvania and New York combined, and it exceeded that of New England without Connecticut. Even when the large Negro population of Virginia is excluded, the population surpassed that of any other colony. If it is appropriate to lump Maryland with Virginia for purposes of economic analysis, the two tobacco colonies contained about 30 percent of the total colonial population. Historical Statistics of the United States, p. 756.

⁷ Based on 4½ bushels of wheat being equivalent to 196 pounds of flour. Bidwell, Percy W. and Falconer, John I., History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620–1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941), p. 498.Google Scholar

⁸ Schumacher, Max George, “The Northern Farmer and his Markets during the Late Colonial Period” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1948), p. 154.Google Scholar Net exports refer to the excess of exports over any imports.

⁹ Public Record Office, London, Customs 16/1 and Schumacher, “Northern Farmer,” p. 154.

¹⁰ Gray, Lewis Cecil, History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (New York: Peter Smith, 1941), 1, 167.Google Scholar

¹¹ Harrington, Virginia D., The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), p. 208.Google Scholar

¹² Gray, History of Agriculture p. 161.

¹³ Ibid., p. 167.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ MacPherson, David, Annals of Commerce (Edinburgh: Mundell and Son, 1805), III, 569.Google Scholar

¹⁸ The average annual grain exports of Virginia for the 5 years of 1768–1772 were computed from Public Record Office, London, Customs 16/1, entitled the Ledger of Imports and Exports for America, 1768–72. This document gives the trade of the colonies with all parts of the world but is limited to the 5 years cited. The calculation of the average annual grain exports of Virginia for the 6 years 1737–1742 was from Public Record Office, London, C.O. 5/1443, C.O. 5/1444, C.O. 5/1445, C.O. 5/1446. Over this period there are no gaps in the naval lists for five of the six naval districts of Virginia. For the sixth district, Accomac, the years used in computing average annuals was the period 1731 through 1734. The alternative to using this 4-year period was to jump to 1746 and beyond, a much later period and therefore less useful for the purpose at hand. Prior to 1731 the gaps in the Virginia naval lists are very frequent, and the information they yield is often severely curtailed.

¹⁷ Historical Statistics of the United States, p. 766. The share of Virginia in American tobacco exports probably remained fairly constant over the interval between the two periods at about two thirds of the total. See, for example, the discussion of Table Z230–237 in Ibid., p. 749.

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 756.

¹⁹ The price used for valuing tobacco exports was 9.5 shillings in 1738–1742 and 17 shillings in 1768–1772. Cole, Arthur H., Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700–1861 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The monthly averages were converted to annual averages and then to a weighted 5-year average. The current Philadelphia prices were then deflated to sterling at a rate of exchange of £167 Pennsylvania currency for £100 sterling. Bezanson, Anne, Gray, Robert D., and Hussey, Miriam, Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935), chap. XIII.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ The 1737–1742 prices are from Cole deflated to British sterling: 1.25 shillings per bushel of corn; 2.12 shillings per bushel of wheat. The negligible flour exports in 1737–1742 were converted to wheat and valued as wheat. The 1768–1772 prices are from Shepherd, James F. Jr, “A Balance of Payments for the Thirteen Colonies” (unpublishel Ph. D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1966): 1.54 shillings per bushel of com; 3.8 shillings per bushel of wheat; 13 shillings per cwt. of flour.Google Scholar

²¹ In his dissertation, James F. Shepherd, Jr., estimated that the average annual per capita income in the thirteen colonies which was directly attributable to overseas commodity trade was £1.5 during 1768–1772. He estimated that slightly more than £1 could be added to this figure to account for per capita income derived from the carrying trade. See page 8 of that study.

²² The per capita wheat consumption figure is that used by Towne and Rasmussen for the 1800–1830 period in their study of gross farm product in the nineteenth century. Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in Income and Wealth, National Bureau of Economic Research, Vol. 24 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 294.Google Scholar Applying estimates of per capita corn consumption to the colonial period is even more hazardous. Towne and Rasmussen estimate human per capita corn consumption in 1800–1840 at 4.4 bushels yearly. See page 297 of their article. In 1839 average per capita consumption of corn by both humans and animals was approximately 22 bushels. Exports Domestic and Foreign, 1697 to 1789 Inclusive, 48th Cong., 1st Sess., House Misc. Doc. 49, Part 2 (Washington, D.C., 1884), p. 21; Historical Statistics of the United States, p. 297. It has also been estimated that slaves in Virginia not fed animal food consumed 15 bushels of corn annually. Rowland, Kate Mason, “Merchants and Mills,” William and Mary Quarterly, 1st ser., Vol. XI (Jan. 1903), 245–46.Google Scholar It seems unlikely that the practice of feeding corn to animals was as important in 1770 as it was in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the ratio of total corn consumption to human corn consumption was roughly 5:1. If this ratio were only one half as great in 1770, total per capita corn consumption could have been 11 bushels yearly. This figure would be on the low side if human corn consumption was greater in 1770 than in the later period. Corn was an important food crop in the colonial period in Virginia, especially among the numerous small planters and among the slaves. Needless to say, the per capita grain consumption figures selected are at best a crude approximation to the correct ones.

²³ There is, of course, a serious theoretical problem in valuing grain consumption at the market price at which the grain exports were sold. It is riot worth speculating oh how the increased supply for sale would have depressed the market price, however. The fact is that most of the grain crop had to be consumed and could not have been sold. At the margin, if the alternative to consuming grain was to sell it, then perhaps the foregone alternative value of the grain consumed (the market price) is a rough approximation of the Value of the grain to those who consumed it.

²⁴ Gray, History of Agriculture, II, 753.

²⁵ One good study dealing with this theme is that by Avery Odell Craven, “Soil Exhaustion as a Factor in the Agricultural History of Virginia and Maryland, 1606- 1860,” University of Illinois Studies in ike Social Sciences, XII (Mar. 1925), 25–71 (esp. 65–69).Google Scholar

²⁶ Wertenbaker, Thomas J., The Planters of Colonial Virginia. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1922), p. 105.Google Scholar

²⁷ Bezanson, Gray, and Hussey, Trices in Pennsylvania, pp. 9–66, 79–84. This is a series on all four items which covers the entire period under study. The prices are for Philadelphia and would probably be close to those prevailing in Virginia. There are no comparable price data for Virginia available. Corn prices may not have advanced as rapidly as tobacco prices.

²⁸ Ibid., p.84.

²⁹ Gray, History of Agriculture, I, 369.

³⁰ Historical Statistics of the United States, p. 757.

³¹ George Rogers Taylor has speculated that between 1710 and 1775 the average annual rate of increase of real per capita income in the American colonies was about 1 percent (“American Economic Growth,” p. 429).