Anglo-American Trade in the Early Eighteenth Century

T HE purpose of this paper is to describe the geographical pattern of the trade passing between England and the North American colonies in the first three decades of the eighteenth century and to show how it was related to the general commercial geography of the two areas. The topic has often been treated by economic historians,' but their accounts of American trade, especially in its early stages, have usually been presented in a descriptive form unsatisfactory to historical geographers. The subject is here approached from a more strictly geographical standpoint by making use of a few of the abundant unpublished documents susceptible of statistical and cartographic treatment. After an analysis of the commodity structure of Anglo-American commerce, an attempt is made to describe the distribution of trade among the different ports, and in so doing to provide an example of the interesting distributions that emerge if port geography, both past and present, is considered with special reference to what have been called forelands2 as well as to hinterlands. This method of taking sea areas as well as land areas as units of study and considering ports in groups rather than as individuals is perhaps especially useful in historical geography. Before the advent of steam navigation maritime trade was more widely distributed than it is today; and distance played a more influential part, in comparison with harbor capacity and port facilities, in fashioning the network of trade routes; consequently there were often sharp regional differences in the external relationships of ports. At the same time land transport was more difficult than at present, and hinterlands were smaller and more clearly defined, so that the trade of a port afforded a safer indication of the economic structure of its surroundings. In view of the shortage of other statistics in historical geography, trade and shipping figures must be regarded as a major source of information about the economic geography of the past

Ancient history · American Environmental and Regional History · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History

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