The British North American colonies had always been involved in overseas trade. By the mid-18th century the colonies were well integrated into an Atlantic trade network not only with western Europe but also with Africa and the West Indies. Much of this trade was connected to slavery since crucial colonial exports such as tobacco and rice depended upon slave labor. In addition, because the West Indies produced sugar to the exclusion of other goods, the North American colonies also exported lumber, fish, and grains to the Caribbean. Much of the North American contact with Africa centered on the international slave trade. Before 1750, on the other hand, intercolonial trade was not well developed.
In the revolutionary era, the Atlantic trade continued to be important, but inland or domestic trade began to increase. Colonial farming families produced a variety of items, including cloth, hats, deerskin, beaver pelts, barrels, rum, cider, and whiskey, to supplement incomes. Towns such as Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Elizabeth, New Jersey, became important centers for this trade. By the 1770s more and more colonial Americans focused on buying, selling, and making profits. The trade expansion of the mid - and late 18th century also produced an increased demand for paper money, which was restricted by British regulations.
While in many ways the Revolutionary War (177583) disrupted these developments, the conflict also created new opportunities. Warships and privateers (see also privateering) threatened the overseas trade of both sides. But independence opened new markets. Similarly, marching armies and military depredations might cut off some trade.
But the goods required to wage war increased the demand for domestic trade. Equipping the British, Continental, and French armies meant big business for farmers now preoccupied with the market. They produced foodstuffs and supplies for armies on the move. Increased inland trade during the war and just after led to many political efforts to create a ready supply of paper money in various states in the 1780s.
The Second Continental Congress hoped to usher in a new age in foreign relations by asserting a policy of free trade. Even before the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776), Congress opened up all ports to foreign vessels on April 6, 1776. Congress created a model commercial treaty, written largely by John Adams, in the fall of 1776, which it hoped would form the basis of relations with France and other countries. This model treaty stipulated that merchants from the United States should pay the same duties as the merchants from the other nation signing the treaty. The French commercial treaty of 1778 fell short of this ideal, granting a reciprocal “most-favored-nation” status instead—stating that merchants from the United States would pay the same duties as those merchants from countries who paid the lowest duties. However, the treaty still asserted a belief in “free ships make free goods,” which reflected the ideals of the Enlightenment and guaranteed the rights of neutral shipping. The commercial treaties signed with the Netherlands (1782), Sweden (1783), and Prussia (1785) all followed the pattern set by the French commercial treaty.
Despite these commercial treaties, a postwar recession and regulations by foreign nations led to problems in international trade during the 1780s. The commercial treaties with European nations had little real impact on commerce in the United States since American merchants had limited access to credit in these nations. Great Britain, which refused to make a commercial agreement with the United States, continued to dominate American commerce because of longtime credit relations and the fact that the British manufactured inexpensive goods desired by many consumers in the United States. Moreover, the mercantilism of the European powers continued to keep their colonies officially closed to the United States. This situation not only made trade with the West Indies difficult—illegal trade continued and local governors might suspend restrictions in dire circumstances—but it also blocked trade on the Mississippi River since Spain had no treaty with the United States and refused to allow western farmers to export products through New Orleans.
There were also problems with internal trade. The economic downturn severely depressed all manner of commercial exchange in the nation and underscored the need for more available and stable paper currency. The various commercial policies of the states contributed to trade confusion.
Painting showing dockworkers unloading sugar and cotton from the John, a merchant trade vessel, at a busy Salem, Massachusetts, wharf (Library of Congress)
Some states had their own imposts leading to a maze of regulations that confused the status of interstate trade.
The United States Constitution attempted to address these problems by creating a uniform trade policy. Under the Constitution, only the national government could make treaties and levy an impost. In addition, the document mandated a national market, asserting “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.” The men at the Constitutional Convention (1787) also addressed currency problems by barring states from issuing their own currencies and creating a legal tender that was exclusively national. (However, individual banks continued to issue banknotes to be used as currency well into the 19th century, both facilitating and complicating domestic trade.)
The Constitution and even Alexander Hamilton’s financial plan had a limited impact on trade and the national economy. However, the French Revolution (1789-99) and the Anglo-French wars that began in 1793 dramatically altered the situation. Exports from the United States of items such as whale oil, wheat, tobacco, cotton, and fish grew from $20.2 million in 1790 to $108.3 million in 1807. Imports expanded at a similar rate. Merchants attained unprecedented wealth by shipping goods from French and British colonies through a reexport market to the United States and then to Europe. This trade barely existed in 1790 and reached $60 million by 1807. Products of this reexport trade from the West and East Indies included coffee, sugar, cocoa, silk, spices, and dyes. Some merchants amassed huge fortunes, such as Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, Robert Oliver of Baltimore, and Thomas Boylston of Salem. An entrepreneurial spirit abounded, and the China trade, which began in 1784 when the Express of China sailed from New York to Canton, China, expanded with items such as tea, silk, and porcelain. Insurance companies proliferated, and large commercial banks prospered by providing merchants with credit and capital to sustain operations. Examples of these commercial banks include the Bank of the United States (Philadelphia), Bank of North America (Philadelphia), and the Bank of New York (New York).
This prosperity spread through much of the society. The mercantile boom was especially good for port cities such as Baltimore, Salem, Boston, Philadelphia, Portsmouth, Charleston, New York, and Savannah. For example, Baltimore’s population grew by 156 percent between 1790 and 1810, as the city became a center of trade through the reexport market and by exporting flour milled from Susquehanna and Chesapeake wheat. New opportunities arose for artisans, sailors, shipbuilders, and others sharing in the commercial wealth. Even Thomas Jefferson’s vaunted yeoman farmers benefited since they produced the grains that filled the ships heading across the Atlantic.
The difficulty for the United States was maintaining neutrality in a world at war. From 1793 to 1812 the United States teetered on the edge—and sometimes over the edge—of hostilities a number of times. In 1793 the British government asserted an extensive definition of contraband and instituted the Rule of 1756 outlawing trade between France and its colonies carried by neutral countries. This action almost led to war as Congress discussed reprisals and passed a trade embargo for 60 days in the spring of 1794. Jay’s Treaty (1794) defused the crisis by establishing most-favored-nation status between Great Britain and the United States and by abandoning the idea that free ships made free goods. The United States, however, could continue with some reexport trade as long as the products were not contraband as defined in the treaty and were actually taken to a port in the United States before being shipped across the Atlantic.
Jay’s Treaty had an impact on the relations between the United States and other nations. The Anglo-American accord convinced Spain to agree to the Pinckney Treaty (1795), which regularized commercial relations, conceded generous boundaries, opened navigation of the Mississippi, and provided the right of deposit in New Orleans. This agreement facilitated both the international and the internal trade of the United States. The French saw Jay’s Treaty as a refutation of the treaties of 1778 and began to seize U. S. merchant vessels in 1797, leading to the Quasi-War (1798-1800). The Convention of 1800 ended this undeclared war. The Peace of Amiens between Great Britain and France (1801-03), while hurting U. S. overseas trade, also removed any reason for conflict concerning trade.
Inland trade steadily expanded in the 1790s as foreign trade increased. Gradually, more and more farmers and artisans earned profits from AGRICUETURE and manufacturing. Inland villages grew into towns as centers of specialized production for sale in regional markets. One example of this phenomenon was Franklin, Massachusetts, which produced 6,000 hats annually by 1810. Gettysburg and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, are two more villages that expanded into market towns between 1790 and 1810. Inland trade in textiles, leather goods, beer, bricks, wheat, iron, paper, vegetables, meats, iron tools, wagons, shoes, and other products increased throughout the period. With this trade expansion there was an increase in transportation facilities with the building of roads and turnpikes. In 1792 there were 1,875 miles of post roads; by 1812 there were almost 40,000 miles of post roads connecting vast swaths of new territory.
The international trade situation worsened in Jefferson’s second term. Resumption of the war between France and Great Britain led to another expansion of neutral trade, but it ultimately created insurmountable problems for the United States. Both France and Great Britain passed a series of regulations that made neutral trade almost impossible by 1807. The Jefferson administration responded with the embargo of 1807, believing that Europe needed American food more than Americans needed European luxuries. The embargo was a failure and devastated the trade of the United States. Efforts to continue to use trade as a diplomatic weapon with the Non-Intercourse Act (1809) and Macon’s Biee No. 2 (1810) did little to alleviate the crisis in foreign relations, and the United States drifted toward war with Great Britain in 1812.
See also foreign affairs; Industriae Revoeution.
Further reading: T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Stuart Bruchey, Enterprise: The Dynamic Economy of a Free People (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Diane Lindstrom, Economic Development in the Philadelphia Region, 1810-1850 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978); Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution (New York: Harper & Row, 1951).
Trenton and Princeton, Battles of (December 26, 1776, and January 3, 1777)
After the disastrous campaign of the summer and fall of 1776, General George Washington gained two crucial victories by attacking outposts at Trenton and Princeton in New Jersey and forcing a British withdrawal to the area immediately surrounding New York City. While these victories did not significantly impair the British army, they represented a major political coup, rallying the supporters of independence and gaining international attention.
Washington’s army experienced a string of defeats starting with the Battee of Long Iseand (August 2730, 1776) that compelled him to abandon New York City, the lower Hudson River valley, and most of New Jersey. He was lucky to escape the British war machine with any troops. By the beginning of December he had been driven into Pennsylvania and had only a few thousand men, many of whom would soon go home as their enlistments ran out. In this circumstance, he planned something daring.
Flush with victory, General Wieeiam Howe ordered his army into winter quarters on December 14. Not expecting an attack, he strung out his forces along a line in New Jersey that ran from the Delaware near Trenton to New Brunswick in the east. Howe knew he was vulnerable, but having issued a proclamation offering a pardon to all who signed a loyalty oath to the king, he sought to defend the king’s newly identified subjects. Winter weather and the dispirited condition of the CONTINENTAL ARMY, he believed, would help protect his exposed forces.
Washington devised a multipronged attack across the Delaware for late December. He crossed the river on Christmas night, but ice and blizzard conditions prevented two other units farther south from doing the same. Washington divided his 2,300 men in New Jersey into two columns, ordering them to advance on Trenton and attack simultaneously. Amazingly, they arrived at Trenton almost at the same time on the morning of December 26, and their combined assault surprised the HESSIAN garrison. Despite the element of shock, and the completeness of the victory, 500 Hessians escaped from Trenton. With other British forces nearby to the south at Mt. Holly, and to the north at Princeton, Washington recrossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania. During the next several days, Washington began to realize the effectiveness of his attack, as the Hessians withdrew from all of their advanced positions. He crossed the Delaware again and by December 31, 1776, had concentrated 5,000 men and 40 howitzers at Trenton.
The British, however, wanted to reverse the loss of Trenton. CHARLES, Lord Cornwallis, with 5,500 regulars, advanced on Washington’s position. By January 2, 1777, Cornwallis believed that he had Washington trapped at Trenton, pinned down between a superior British force and the Delaware River. Delayed by small units from Washington’s army, Cornwallis arrived at Trenton toward the end of the day and decided to wait until the next morning to finish Washington and end the rebellion. That night, Washington slipped the trap. Keeping a small force in Trenton to maintain campfires and to make noise digging entrenchments, the Continental army used a road to the south to advance on Princeton. On the morning of January 3, 1777, a British regiment under Colonel Charles Mahwood heading to support Cornwallis detected Washington’s army near Princeton. Mahwood, with much fewer men, attacked. An intense battle ensued, and the revolutionaries were almost driven back before Washington rallied his men, drove Mahwood off, and captured the outpost at Trenton. Again, however, many of the British soldiers escaped, some to join Cornwallis at Trenton, others to the British depot at New Brunswick. Regardless of this shortcoming, Washington’s victories were complete. The British decided to abandon most of New Jersey, maintaining posts only at Amboy and New Brunswick. Washington took his army to a winter encampment at MORRISTOWN, New Jersey, and both armies awaited the spring of 1777 to renew the campaign.
See also REVOLUTIONARY War.
Further reading: David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practices, 1763-1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1971); Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1783-1789 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Trumbull, John (1756-1843) painter More than any other artist, John Trumbull is responsible for our image of the REVOLUTIONARY War (1775—83). His 250 to 300 historical paintings of battles and events, such as the signing of the DECLARATION OF Independence (July 4, 1776), faithfully represent the people and the scenes that made the United States.
The son of Governor Jonathan Trumbull of Connecticut, a young John Trumbull wanted to study art with JOHN SiNGLETON Copley. His father packed him off to Harvard instead. Shortly after he graduated, the Revolutionary War broke out and Trumbull obtained a commission in the CONTINENTAL ARMY. He saw action at DORCHESTER Heights (March 4-5, 1776), and was in high demand as an aide because of his ability to draw. He left the army in 1777, serving briefly again as a volunteer in the Rhode Island campaign in 1778. He tried his hand in several speculative ventures during the war, but in 1780 he obtained special permission to go to England where he studied with Benjamin West. On November 19, 1780, the British government arrested him for treason—the arrest may have been in retaliation for the execution of Major JOHN Andre. Trumbull was quickly released and left for the Continent.
He returned to the United States in 1783. Over the next decade Trumbull traveled extensively in Europe and the United States. It was also his most productive period as an artist, during which he painted some of his best known historical works such as the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Death of General Montgomery in the Attack on Quebec. He began his most famous painting, The Declaration of Independence, by 1789 but took eight years to complete it. He painted 36 of the 48 individuals in the work from life. He also used a sketch of the arrangement of the room by THOMAS JEFFERSON to capture the surrounding detail. Between 1794 and 1800 he served as secretary to JOHN Jay. After 1800 he relied on his painting to earn a living, which became increasing difficult for him as most critics believed that his best work was behind him. He painted large, if imperfect, copies of some of his historical paintings for the new U. S. Capitol building in 1816 and 1817. Yale set up a gallery for his work in 1832 and provided Trumbull with a stipend for the remainder of his life.
See also ART.
Further reading: Irma B. Jaffe, John Trwmbull, Patriot-Artist of the American Revolution (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1975).
Tyler, Royall (1757-1826) playwright Even with a successful career as a jurist, Royall Tyler’s greatest accomplishments appeared in LITERATURE and the THEATER. Tyler wrote The Contrast in 1787, a comic play that satirizes social pretensions. In the wake of the Revolutionary War (1775-83), Tyler became a literary voice of the American Revolution.
Tyler was born in 1757 to a prominent Boston family. With his inheritance, Tyler attended Harvard College, earning a B. A. in 1776. He continued his studies, receiving a Harvard M. A. in 1778 and admission to the bar in 1780. Tyler practiced law in Maine for two years before returning to Boston.
After an unsuccessful courtship of Abigail Adams, daughter of John and Abigail Adams, Tyler sought to mend his broken heart by joining the campaign against the Shays’s Rebellion (1786-87) in western Massachusetts.
Despite Tyler’s limited success in the campaign, his efforts caught the attention of Governor James Bowdoin. Tyler was sent to New York City in March 1787. It was his first encounter with New York City and its theater. In just over a month, Tyler wrote The Contrast and saw it performed by the American Company at the John Street Theater. The play was the first professionally produced American comedy.
Influenced by Richard Sheridan’s The School for Scandal (1777), Tyler’s The Contrast highlights the differences between American and British values and manners. In the end, the play champions blunt American pragmatism over duplicitous British formalism. One character, Brother Jonathan, stands out as a no-nonsense, honest fellow. This character developed a life of its own in American folklore and literature. Some scholars have even claimed that the character is the prototype for Uncle Sam, the personification of the U. S. government.
A successful essayist and author, Tyler continued to practice law, eventually serving as chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. As the initially unsigned playwright of The Contrast, however, he captured elements of the era in a comedy of manners.
Further reading: G. Thomas Tanselle, Royall Tyler (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967).
—Jay R. Dew
World History
