The Economic Growth of the Chesapeake and the European Market, 1697–1775

The relative position of the Chesapeake in the economy of the thirteen colonies before the American Revolution is a matter of some ambiguity. On the one hand, we are traditionally taught to view Virginia and Maryland as somewhat backward compared to their northern neighbors, particularly in their lack of large towns and of those forms of a centralized market economy commonly based upon urban commercial centers. On the other hand, simple quantitative measurement seems to indicate that they were among the most highly developed of the colonies. Virginia was the most populous of all, and even Maryland had more inhabitants than New York. If between them they were to account for about 30 per cent of the population of the thirteen colonies on the eve of the Revolution, they were even more strikingly to account for close to 50 percent of colonial exports to England. If we add in oft-neglected Scotland as a recipient, then the Chesapeake's share of exports to Great Britain passes 60 per cent. If we had chosen to make our measurements as of a generation earlier, then the Chesapeake's share of colonial exports would have been even higher.