Smoke and Mirrors

The most recent research demonstrates that the idea of a 30-year depression in the Chesapeake economy at the end of the seventeenth century, which has been the dominant view since the groundbreaking work of the “Chesapeake school” 30 years ago, is no longer tenable. The peculiar way this “depression thesis” emerged has inhibited creative and ongoing research on the society and economy of early Virginia and Maryland. This essay argues that the time has come to explore new questions with new perspectives, including an awareness of the Atlantic dimensions as well as the internal diversity of the early modern Chesapeake. To help encourage further research the authors point to suggestive but under-researched aspects of the region's economy in the so-called era of depression, including the variation of regional tobacco cultures, new evidence of a vibrant commerce with the Caribbean, exchange with other mainland colonies, trade with the Indians, growth of internal markets, shipbuilding, and western land development. An awareness that the old narratives no longer work and that many topics are ripe for creative analysis shows that better solutions to old interpretive problems within the history and historiography of the colonial Chesapeake are possible, including the consolidation of gentry power, opportunity for poor whites, and the rise of slavery

Archaeology · Art · Capitalism · Colonialism · Diversity (politics · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Gentry · Great Depression · Historiography · Literature · Mainland · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Welsh · American History and Culture · Anthropology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law

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