In the late eighteenth century, northern Virginia's grain-based slave economy prompted a thriving but risky overseas trade. The merchants who conducted this trade sought to manage their risks by purchasing marine insurance, initially from British and northern U.S. sources. After the American Revolution, however, the expense and inconvenience of obtaining insurance abroad prompted merchants to create local institutions modeled on northern practices. Most notably, in 1797 Alexandria merchants established the Alexandria Marine Insurance Company, an incorporated entity that helped manage the risks of overseas trade during the dangerous Napoleonic Wars, enlarged local sources of capital, and, in turn, played a significant role in stimulating regional economic development. The appearance of this marine insurance company (and others like it) reveals the significant role that financial intermediaries played in the development of the southern slave economies in the early republic.

In order to facilitate commercial transactions and economic investment after the American Revolution, many inhabitants of northern Virginia became convinced that the region needed financial institutions. Indeed, most politically active residents of the region—at least after the 1790s—saw banks as crucial agents of economic development. Thus, the philosophy of “agrarian republicans” such as Thomas Jefferson and John Taylor of Carolina—who saw banks as monopolistic and anti-republican institutions—had limited appeal in the region. Moreover, the banks of northern Virginia were not controlled by planters who sought capital to finance the purchase of slaves and land. Instead, banks supported a wide range of economic endeavors—agriculture, industry, internal improvement projects, and commercial activities. The broadening access to bank capital in northern Virginia reveals that in the South—as in the northern states—there was a “democratization” of banking in the years after Revolution.