M&D rambulatory yammerings

[Monte Davis]

Never forget the role of the Caribbean. According to Floud & McCloskey, *The
Economic History of Britain, 1700-Present, *in 1700-1701 14% of England's
imports came from the West Indies vs. 6% from North America; domestic
exports were 5% to West Indies vs. 6% to NA. In 1797-1798, despite much
greater population growth on the mainland and resumption of pre-War of
Independence trade, imports were still 25% from West Indies vs. 7% from NA,
exports 25% vs. 32%.

French troops and artillery helped Washington's rebels win at Yorktown in
1781. Just as important, in the Battle of the Chesapeake (aka the Capes)
six weeks earlier, a French fleet kept a British fleet from providing
reinforcements, naval gun support, or evacuation to besieged Cornwallis --
as British fleets had routinely done for their land forces throughout the
war. That, in turn, was because the British admiral had instructions not to
risk heavy losses, lest he leave the West Indies vulnerable. And that, in
turn, was because the sugar magnates who'd been buying influence and
shaping policy since the 1600s had less to lose on a big strip of continent
than on those small but oh-so-sweet islands. That's hard on Yankee Doodle's
amour-propre, but it's true.

(Ditto for slavery, by the way -- many more slaves went to the sugar
islands than to North America, mostly because many more died there,
typically in worse working and disease conditions than on mainland
plantations. Do we feel better now?)

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 9:56 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bernard Bailyn is also an excellent resource, although his early work
> focuses mostly on New England, but Voyagers to the West is interesting, and
> so is Ideological Origins as well, but save that for another topic...
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 9:27 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Yes, two, for the question about transactions prior to 1790,  Edwin J.
>> Perkins _The Economy of Colonial America_ and then, for the explosion
>> after 1790, Alfred D. Chandler Jr.'s _The Visible Hand_
>>
>>
>> >
>> > I'm no expert, but it seems to me that any colonial identity is bound
>> to be
>> > more self-consciously transaction-based (a colony being a transaction to
>> > begin with) than a more 'organically' formed state.   I wonder, what
>> did the
>> > Colonial trade breakdown look like in 1765, as opposed to, say, fifty
>> years
>> > earlier?  Any ideas where to look for the British share of Colonial
>> trade
>> > relative to the rest (inter-colonial, Native American, etc.) for this
>> > period, to see how things were 'trending' (I know trade shot up right
>> around
>> > that time, but that was a credit bubble, right? that burst just before
>> the
>> > Revolution? (...so was it a bank-led paradigm shift, then?)
>> >
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>
>
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