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LABOR CONDITIONS IN THE SOUTH.

to get the new machines. This was duly accomplished by surreptitiously bringing across the Atlantic parts of machines, or plans; by ingenious mechanics here reconstructing English machines from memory; or by inventions of native artisans.

In 1786 Hugh Orr of Bridgewater, Mass., a pioneer in American manufactures, employed two Scotchmen to build a spinning-jenny and other machines patterned after the English and in the following year a cotton factory was erected in Beverly, Mass., and equipped with machinery. Similar factories were erected in Rhode Island, New York and Pennsylvania, but the immediate great development of the factory system took place in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Samuel Slater, a young Englishman who had acquired a complete knowledge of cotton manufacturing and the machinery used in the industry, came to the United States in 1789. He was able to construct machinery on the English plan and in association with Messrs. Brown and Almy, manufacturers of Providence, R. I., he built and equipped a small factory in Providence in 1793. This was the first successful cotton mill in the United States, and with it tentatively begun the factory system of labor which was developed to amazing proportions in the next century.

In the South the system of free contract labor and that of servitude was gradually but surely displaced by

slave labor. At the time of the Revolution negro slavery was in many quarters not much more favorably regarded than it was in the North. Washington, Jefferson, and other patriot leaders were opposed to it on principle, and their views ripened. into plans for emancipation in 1779 and 1796; but these came to naught, although in the States of the Upper South many individuals did free their slaves. Industrial distress in the slave-holding States and the growing doubt regarding the economic worth of slave labor were operating to undermine this institution.

But contrary influences were operating more strongly and, in the end, more effectively. The great inventions which had brought about the industrial revolution and the establishment of the factory system in the North were powerful factors in determining labor conditions in the South. The machines for making cotton fabrics and finally the cotton gin, all of which had come into the industrial field within a few years after the close of the war, multiplied many times the demand for the cotton staple. It is true that this demand was not dominant until after the next century had opened, but the future was forecast clearly enough to thoughtful minds substantially to affect the labor situation. There could be little doubt that the South was destined to be the great cottonproducing section of the country, and even then there were those who, look

CHANGES IN LABOR CONDITIONS.

ing ahead, believed that they could foresee in the near future the predominance of the South over the rest of the world in this industry. But cotton-raising called for negro-slave labor, while at the same time the increasing commerce of the country was developing a large demand for tobacco, rice, and other slave-made staples.

Thus it came about that the industrial trend of the Revolutionary period wrought two pronounced and strikingly different changes in the labor conditions of the country. In the North, free labor became concentrated and less individual. In the South, slave labor became fixed in its

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status. Both these new conditions persisted for generations and were determining factors in the economic and political future of the country.*

* W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789, vol. ii. (2 vols., Boston, 1899); Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, (2 vols., New York, 1896); Carroll D. Wright, The Industrial Evolution of the United States (New York, 1895); J. A. Doyle, The English Colonies in America (New York, 1882). For white servitude and slavery in the South, see Johns Hopkins University Studies, series xiii., nos. vi.-vii., series xiv., nos. iv.-v., series xvii., nos. vii.-viii., and series xxii., nos. iii.-iv. Peter (Baltimore, 1895-96-99-1904); Kalm, Travels into North America (3 vols., London, 1771); Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, 1605-1616 (2 vols., Boston, 1890); Peter Force, Tracts and Other Papers Relating to the Colonies in North America (4 vols., Washington, 1836-1846).

CHAPTER III.

1764-1789.

COMMERCE: TRANSPORTATION: BANKING AND CURRENCY.

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Illicit and indirect trade- - Volume of trade before and after non-importation agreements Varieties and values of exports from Northern colonies - Imports and exports of the Southern colonies-Roads and thoroughfares in early colonial times - Growth of merchant marine - Clearances of vessels at American ports - Vessels owned in colonies Aggregate tonnage in American carrying trade — Revenues collected by taxation and imports insignificant Bills of credit issued by Congress and States - - Their depreciation Loan-offices established Failure of the scheme for national taxation Bank of North America instituted loans - Congress vested with power to impose duties — Issues of paper money.

Commerce.

As the Revolutionary period approached, the commerce of the colonies began to show more and more the effect of the controversies that were continually going on between Great Britain and her American subjects. But exports and imports fluctuated

--

- Foreign

as the anti-colonial legislation of the mother country was pressed or relaxed. Colonial resentment against the repressive policy of Great Britain had long before led to smuggling, which was carried on extensively in the New England and Middle colonies by merchants and others, many

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of whom ultimately became the patriot leaders in the struggle for independence. Of this smuggling commerce, which was undoubtedly large in amount and which went on almost without break for more than a hundred years, there was naturally little record. But the essential truth of the statement that "the colonists were a nation of law-breakers; ninetenths of the colonial merchants were smugglers," * cannot be denied. denied. Large imports from England were paid for in reimports or in smuggled goods. Fully one-half the trade between New York and Boston and the West Indies was illicit, and Lord Sheffield estimated that this illicit and indirect trade to England between 1700 and 1773 amounted to more than £30,000,000.

Finally the colonies operated more openly and by legal methods, in the non-importation agreements which they entered into in 1768. As a result of these measures, the recorded commerce with Great Britain was greatly reduced, especially in the North. In the following table is an exhibit of the exports from Great Britain before and after these agreements were effected:

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To Maryland and Virginia £669, 422 To North and South Caro

lina To Georgia

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£614,944

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It will be observed that in the Southern colonies the agreements were less strictly adhered to than in the North. While in the North importations were reduced more than onehalf, the reduction in the South was trifling less than 3 per cent. This was on account of the predominance of the tobacco and cotton raising industries of the South, which made that largely an importing section with limited ability to supply their home. needs from home industry. Within the next three years the trade from Great Britain recovered somewhat, being £1,979,416 in value in 1772, nearly £475,000 in excess of that of 1769, though still below that of 1768 by over £400,000. And in less than four years more it was practically all gone.

But a considerable trade was maintained until close upon the breaking out of actual hostilities. From 1765 to 1775 New England, besides supplying her home needs, exported principally dried codfish, valued at £100,000; whale and cod oil £127,000; pickled mackerel and shad £15,000; pickled beef and pork £28,500; masts, boards, staves and shingles £75,000; ships £49,000; horses and live stock £37,000; potash £35,000; very little indeed of agricultural products. Dur

VARIETIES AND VALUES OF EXPORTS.

ing the same period the principal exports of New York were flour and biscuit valued at £250,000; wheat £70,000; Indian corn and other grains £40,000; salt beef, and other meats £18,000; flaxseed £14,000; horses and live stock £17,000; almost entirely agricultural products. Pennsylvania showed a record similar to that of New York, her leading exports being biscuit flour valued at £350,000; wheat £100,000; Indian corn and other grains £12,000; salt beef and other meats £45,000; tongues, butter and cheese £10,000; live stock and horses £20,000; flaxseed £30,000,-all agricultural products. The only exports of Pennsylvania that rivaled any of its food stuffs were deer and other skins £50,000; lumber in various forms £35,000; ships £17,500; copper and iron £35,000.

The eminence of New England in colonial commerce, with Boston and Newport as the leading seaports, continued until well toward the Revolution. The foreign shipping of Boston in this period amounted to nearly 600 clearances every year. Newport had 30 distilleries which needed to be fed with molasses from the West Indies, and that meant a large trade. Immediately prior to the Revolution, Philadelphia became the chief port in North America. An export trade of more than £700,000 annually was carried on in about 400 vessels, 50 per cent. more than the exports of all the New England ports at that time. The imports and ex

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ports of the two Southern colonies which were depending upon tobacco were still far to the front. Virginia and Maryland alone, in 1769, sent out exports to the value of £1,040,000 sterling and in the years immediately following the record was in similarly large figures, the exports being in excess of the imports.*

Transportation.

In the earliest colonial days, transportation was a simple proposition, for there was practically none of it. What little did exist was by water, a few vessels coming from European ports, principally England, to the scattered settlements along the seaboard, bringing supplies and returning with lumber and other colonial products. Now and then a ship was sent from one colonial port to another for purposes of trade. Inland there was absolutely no transportation or need therefor. A trackless waste of

* Adam Seybert, Statistical Annals (Philadelphia, 1878); John Baker Holroyd (Lord Sheffield), Observations on the Commerce of the American States (London, 1784); J. P. Brissot, The Commerce of America with Europe (New York, 1795); G. L. Beer, Commercial Policy of England toward the American Colonies (New York, 1893); J. McGregor, Commercial Statistics of the United States, in Progress of America (London, 1847); J. S. Homans, An Historical and Statistical Account of the Foreign Commerce of the United States (New York, 1857); E. L. Bogart, Economic History of the United States (New York, 1908); P. A. Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols., New York, 1896); W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, 1620-1789 (2 vols., Boston, 1890); J. C. Ballagh (ed.), Economic History, 1607-1865, vol. v. in The South in the Building of the Nation (Richmond, 1909).

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EARLY ROADBUILDING; WATER ROUTES.

forest land backed up the narrow fringe of settlement on the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to Carolina. Hardy pioneers who ventured inland to found new settlements blazed their way through the woods or sometimes along the Indian paths. They traveled on foot and carried their few belongings on their backs. Before the middle of the first century they had added horses and cattle to their possessions, and these were used to transport the few things that were needed. Rude wagons were built, and with these land transportation, slight though it was, had its beginning.

Very soon better means of land communication between different parts of the country were inaugurated, but nothing of real convenience existed until well into the second century. Roads were built, but for the most part they were merely township affairs. They were more general and better in the New England and Middle colonies than in the South. Massachusetts had very good thoroughfares from town to town, except over the hills, and the old Boston road from New York City to Boston served its purpose. From New York City to Albany, on the east bank of the Hudson River, was a good post road. In Pennsylvania and in New Jersey the roads generally were of the most primitive character and practically impassable in any but the best weather. It was a two days' trip from New York City to Philadelphia by stage coach, double that

from New York City to Boston, and seven or eight days by sloop from New York City to Albany. To the time of the Revolution there was little intercolonial travel or transportation by land, while in the winter communication even by water was almost completely cut off.

The necessity and the convenience of transportation by water were early impressed upon the minds of the colonists, and out of this condition grew the large shipbuilding and merchant marine, particularly of the Northern colonies. Not only was foreign commerce thus stimulated, but shipments and trading from colony to colony were almost entirely by coasters along the Atlantic seaboard. Thus it is that transportation and merchant marine are almost synonymous terms for the entire colonial period.

When the second century had opened nearly all the colonies had a merchant marine of considerable size. Beginning with 1704, there were newspapers which which gave gave shipping news in fact most of the domestic news which they printed was of this character. For the first two decades of the Eighteenth century, the columns of The Boston News-Letter must be the main reliance for information upon this point. It appears from the record of arrivals and clearances, from New York and Boston particularly, that trading was almost entirely with the other colonies, the West Indies, Fayal and Madeira, Newfoundland and England. Most of

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