Scottish Commerce and the American War of Independence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3215713 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M L Robertson (corresponding author), MJP Robertson (The King's College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1956 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 123 |
| Publication date | 1956-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2591536 |
| OpenAlex | W4253723861, W2090863475 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
T | SHE American War of Independence, and the consequent failure of the lucrative colonial trade, set in motion a train of events which were in time to alter the pattern of Scottish economic life. By 1775, Scottish commerce had reached unprecedented heights. From small and insignificant beginnings, a flourishing trade had been built up with America on the basis of the Navigation Acts, from which Scotland had benefited since the Union, and which compelled the colonies to route the bulk of their foreign trade through British ports, instead of shipping directly to and from the markets of Europe. The principal centre of the trade was Glasgow,' and the main article of commerce on which it depended was tobacco. By 1775 Scotland's imports from America amounted to 43 per cent of total imports-more than three times as much as from any other single country. Tobacco alone accounted for 38 per cent of the country's imports and 56 per cent of its exports. The trade was mainly a re-export one, as the bulk of the tobacco was sent to France, Holland and other European countries. Glasgow was merely an entrepot in the trade between America and Europe. Its prosperity depended to a very large extent upon the terms of the Navigation Acts, and was bound to be peculiarly sensitive to changes in the relationship between mother country and colonies. The Declaration of Independence seemed to rock the whole precarious structure of Scottish commerce
Economic history · Economics · Independence (probability theory) · Political science · Statistics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Mathematics · Scottish History and National Identity
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Centring transatlantic slavery in Scottish historiography
The Commercial Empire of the Atlantic, 1607-1783
Recent Contributions to American Economic History
The British Credit Crisis of 1772 and The American Colonies
| Citations per year | 0.1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1959 - 2022 (64) |
| Highly cited | No |