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South Carolina and the Atlantic Economy in the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth CenturiesAuthor(s): R. C. NashSource: The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Nov., 1992), pp. 677-702Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Economic History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2597414 .

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Economic History Review, XLV, 4(I992), pp. 677-702

South Carolina and the Atlantic economy in the late seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries By R. C. NASH

T he revival in British American colonial history since the i96os has added considerably to our knowledge both of the economic development of the

major colonial regions, and of what it has for some time been fashionable to call the 'Atlantic economy', the matrix of trade which linked the colonial regions to each other and to their European markets.' This research has shown how rapidly the colonies grew in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, making the British Atlantic region one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy.2 However, as with most areas of specialist research, the coverage of this work has been uneven. Recent scholarship has concentrated on New England and on Virginia and Maryland; the middle colonies and the lower south have attracted much less interest.3 Similarly, work on the Atlantic economy has been patchy. The staple trades in sugar and tobacco, and the trade in slaves used to produce these commodities, have been extensively studied; but the staples of the temperate northern colonies-grain, fish, and furs-have received less attention, while the staple exports of the lower south-rice and indigo-have been the most neglected. Indeed, until recently the renaissance in colonial history was hardly evident in studies of Carolina and Georgia. But in the last i5 years or so research monographs and general surveys devoted to these colonies have begun to appear.4 These have been written from a colonial perspective, and their main interest has been the development of staple production within the framework of the slave plantation system. Other aspects of regional development, in particular the integration of staple exports into world markets, have been little studied.

The purpose of this paper is to provide new evidence on the incorporation of South Carolina's rice exports into the Atlantic economy, and to consider this evidence in the light of what has become known as the staples thesis, a model

'I should like to thank my colleagues Dr T. Balderston, Dr A. J. Marrison, and Prof. R. Milward for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to thank Dr D. Ormrod for his generous advice on Dutch sources, and finally my good friend Pete Nicholls for his help with Italian sources.

2 Davis, Atlantic economies; McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America. 3 The three colonies making up the region conventionally referred to as the lower south are North

and South Carolina and Georgia. However, North Carolina is generally regarded, with the exception of the Cape Fear district, as having had more in common economically with Virginia and Maryland than it did with the colonies further south.

4 For South Carolina, see Clowse, Economic beginnings; Wood, Black majority; Weir, Colonial South Carolina, pp. I4I-72; McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. i69-88; Menard, 'Slavery'; and esp. Coclanis, Shadow of a dream. There are also a number of unpublished Ph.D. theses which will be referred to below.

677



678 R. C. NASH

first used in historical work by Innis, and subsequently refined in studies by development economists. This model emphasizes the demand-led nature of staple growth: the course of colonial exports is seen as determined mainly by secular increases in metropolitan demand. This assumption is tested and challenged in the first section of this paper, which analyses the world market for rice, and shows that the development of Carolina exports was influenced decisively not by demand changes, but rather by the interaction between supply changes occurring in the metropolitan cereals markets and in South Carolina's rice industry. The second section returns to this latter topic, and considers the restructuring of Carolina's agriculture in greater detail.

I

The staples thesis has been used by historians to provide an economic explanation of why colonies were founded, as well as a longer-term account of the development of their export economies.' The model assumes a developing trading relationship between two complementary regions. A metropolitan region has elastic supplies of labour and capital but inelastic supplies of land and of raw materials. The colony has little or no population, but ample supplies of natural resources, which give it a strong advantage in producing goods with a high resource content. Colonization-the export of capital and labour from the metropolis-occurs when rising staple prices in Europe create expectations that production in America will be profitable, despite the high initial costs and risks of transatlantic settlement. Where colonization was successful these high costs were soon reduced, as colonists gained knowledge about available resources and production techniques, and as the increasing volume of production generated economies of scale in production and in distribution. When these major cost reductions had been achieved, further expansions of staple output occurred under conditions of constant costs. Such expansions were triggered by secular increases in European demand: these had the immediate effect of pushing up staple prices, because in the short run the supply of factors in the colony was inelastic. However, the higher returns to factors stimulated a renewed cycle of migration of labour and capital; staple prices fell as production was increased, and eventually a new equilibrium was achieved. To sum up, the staples approach emphasizes the demand-led nature of export growth, and the long-run elasticity of staple supply curves.

Of course, this model provides only a rough approximation of the realized pattern of colonization. Many colonies were founded on the basis of unrealistic expectations, which emphasized the economic prospects of conquest, cloth markets, manufacturing, mineral wealth-almost anything but agricultural staple production.6 In these cases it was not until the hollowness of the

5 My discussion of the staples thesis follows Galenson and Menard, 'Approaches to economic growth'; Shepherd and Walton, Shipping, maritime trade, pp. 6-26; and McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. 17-34, who comment, '[the] expansion of the export sector . . . is largely a function of increased external demand, although improved productivity also played a role.'

6 For the slow emergence of the perception that American colonies could provide the basis for a transatlantic trade in agricultural staples, see Shammas, 'English commercial development'.



SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY 679

pioneers' expectations had been revealed that a serious search for viable foundations could begin. It was from this costly, haphazard, and frequently unsuccessful process of experimentation that staple production slowly emerged.7 In this respect, South Carolina was much more successful than most colonies in realizing the ambitions of its original settlers. This probably reflected the fact that about half of them were not greenhorns from England, but seasoned migrants from another colony-Barbados. They arrived with the modest ambition of setting up an export trade in provisions to the West Indies, and they brought with them a number of slaves to provide the basis of an agricultural labour force. The scheme worked, and as Greene has remarked, 'for at least a generation the colony functioned effectively as its West Indian proponents had initially intended, as an adjunct to the Barbadian economy'.8 In some degree success was also derived from a high rate of exploitation of the Indian population: Indians were used as slaves for a lengthy period, and the colonists were also able to involve them in the more reputable trade in deerskins, which provided the colony with its first significant staple. It was the trade in skins, as well as the rapid growth of population, which attracted to South Carolina around I700 a number of well-connected English and Huguenot merchants. The colony's early history was therefore marked by the production or acquisition of land-intensive staples, and by the rapid creation of a Charleston-based mercantile group.9

But at the same time a number of planters were conducting vigorous experiments with the production of more capital- and labour-intensive agricultural staples. From this process, which as McCusker and Menard have commented was unusually rational and systematic, two staples emerged which came to dominate South Carolinian exports in the early eighteenth century: naval stores and rice.'0 Naval stores production used slave labour to exploit the area's rich pine forests, but it was an industry which could only flourish under lavish British bounties, and when these were reduced in the late I720S, production went into decline. The production of rice on slave plantations in the Carolina low country proved to be a more durable staple. Rice was introduced to South Carolina in the i69os and by c. I720 had become what it was to remain for the rest of the colonial period-the region's dominant export. Indeed, by c. I770 it was the third most valuable export from mainland America. One further major staple was introduced in the colonial period-indigo. It was first produced in quantity in the late I740s, at a time when a depression in the rice industry encouraged experimentation with alternative staples, and by I770 accounted for about one-quarter of South Carolina's exports as well as standing fifth by value in the list of

7On this process in Virginia and New England see McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. II7-20; Greene, Pursuits of happiness, pp. 8-ia; Bailyn, New England merchants, pp. I-I5.

8 Greene, Pursuits of happiness, p. 5i. For other studies stressing the West Indian links see idem, 'Colonial South Carolina'; Dunn, 'English sugar islands'; Waterhouse, 'England'.

9 Clowse, Economic beginnings, pp. 6i-5, 83, i62-5, I79; Crane, Southern frontier, pp. I0-2; Stumpf, 'The merchants', pp. I I-2, 49-50, 72; and Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. 56-8, who stresses the land- intensive nature of early staple development.

10 McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, p. I75.



68o R. C. NASH

mainland exports. It was rice and indigo which generated the rapid growth of the Carolina low country in the eighteenth century, and which made the Carolina planters the richest social group in British America.'2

Table i. South Carolina rice exports: Charleston rice prices, I 700-I774 (annual averages; I 736-9 = ioo)

Rice exports Rice prices

shillings lbs. (m) index per cwt. index

(I (2) (3) (4)

I700-3 0.474 2 I704-7 O.529' 2 I708-Ii I.242 5 I7I2-5 3.04I I3 I7I6-9 3.606 I5 I720-3 8.245 35 6.I5 8o I724-7 9.I2I 39 6.78 88 I728-3I i6.9i6 72 5.95 77 I732-5 i8.84I 8i 7.i8 93 I736-9 23.375 I00 7.73 I00 I740-3 35.050 I50 5.85 76 I744-7 3I.i89 I33 3.25 42 I748-5I 27-492 II8 7.55 98 I752-5 4I.205 I76 7.38 95 I756-9 35.479 I52 6.30 82 I760-3 44.II4 I89 6.oo 78 I764-7 54.420 233 7.10 92 I768-7I 68.420 293 8.oo I03 I772-4 64.329 275 9.47 I22

Notes: col. I: I725-74, data compiled from Coon, 'Development', who has rechecked the original data source; hence the figures given here differ slightly from those published in US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics; col. 3: original prices in Carolina currency, converted to sterling using the exchange rates in McCusker, Money and exchange, pp. 222-4. a No data for I705. Sources: col. I: for I700-24, US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics, II, p. II93; for I7I2, P.R.O., Treasury Misc., T64/276, fo. 320; for I725-74, Coon, 'Development', app. I; col. 3: for I722-3, I727-33, Scottish Record Office (hereafter S.R.O.), G.D. 237/I0/4, nos. I-2, Daybook and accounts of merchants in Charleston, S. Carolina, thereafter in London and Edinburgh, I724-6; Coclanis, 'Rice prices', p. 538; for I733-74, Cole, Wholesale commodity prices, II, pp. I5-68.

We know little about the beginnings of the rice industry in South Carolina, but are fortunate to possess a series of export figures from I698 onwards. Table i shows that from c. I700 to the early I770S rice exports increased over a hundredfold, an expansion which took place in four well-defined phases. First, from I690 to I720 rice became established as a minor staple in Atlantic trade and as the dominant commodity in Carolina's staple economy. Second, from I720 to I740 rice exports quadrupled and rice became a major staple in transatlantic trade. Third, in I740-60 the rice industry was depressed with very little overall expansion in exports. Finally, from c. I760 to the Revolution exports increased by over 50 per cent. No

1' Clowse, Economic beginnings, pp. I22-35, i68-72; Coon, 'Development', pp. i68-75; Ver Steeg, Origins, pp. II7-2I; Terry, ' "Champaign County" ', pp. 72-7.

12 See Bentley, 'Wealth distribution'; Waterhouse, 'Economic growth'.



SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY 68i

price data are available before I720, but from that date we have published figures for Philadelphia, and from I722 a series of Charleston prices. Table I shows that while in the short term rice prices were quite volatile, in the long term they were fairly stable, with a slight downward trend until the I740s, and a modest upward trend thereafter. The movement of prices and exports tended to be positively correlated; prices being highest in periods of expansion, as from I764 to I774, and lowest during periods of depression, most notably in the I740s and the mid I750s. The data on rice exports and prices therefore appear to bear out the chief prediction of the staples thesis: that the expansion of the export sector was demand-led. Closer examination of the rice trade and its European markets, however, suggests that the decisive influence on exports was exercised by a complex series of interactions between metropolitan and colonial sources of supply.

Little research has been undertaken on the markets for rice, reflecting the general neglect of demand as a subject of study.'3 Most studies of staple industries concentrate on supply, simply assuming a secular increase in demand.'4 The only substantial analysis of the demand for rice is that of Coclanis, who argues that the basis of colonial export expansion in i650- I750 was economic growth in western Europe. Growth created higher incomes and a changed structure of demand, as consumption in Europe shifted from basic items to goods with high and positive income elasticities, such as non-essential foodstuffs and manufactured goods. The shift in demand was paralleled by shifts in supply. Resources were reallocated in an international setting: the proportion of resources devoted to basic agricultural production in western Europe declined, while surplus capital and labour were exported to America, where they were concentrated in the production of a number of agricultural staples, including rice."

There are two comments to be made on Coclanis's argument. First, even for England the case for a sustained rise in incomes over the whole period i650-I750 is debatable, while outside England evidence for such trends is slight. Recent work on Holland in the period, for example, confirms the impression of stagnation outside the financial and commercial sectors, and leaves unresolved the question of whether the Dutch economy experienced growth or decline.'6 It has been argued, more generally, that the post-i650 fall in the price of bread raised the standard of living of wage earners in western Europe through an income effect. 17 But, in the absence of widespread productivity gains in agriculture, this may have resulted merely in a redistribution of income away from producers rather than an increase in overall prosperity.'8 Second, Coclanis's argument is a general one, applying, as

'3 See Price, 'The transatlantic economy', p. 26. 14 See for example Shepherd and Walton, Shipping, maritime trade, pp. i6-9. 15 Coclanis, 'Economy and society', pp. I77-85; idem, 'Rice prices'; idem, 'Bitter harvest'; idem, 'Rise

and fall', pp. I44-8; and esp. idem, Shadow of a dream, pp. 52-4. 16 On England see Price, 'Transatlantic economy', pp. 30-3; Crafts, British economic growth, pp. 9-47;

and on Holland, Riley, 'Dutch economy'; de Vries, 'Decline and rise'. 17 Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, p. 239, n. 22; de Vries, Economy of Europe, pp. 84-5. 18 As de Vries himself comments on Holland, 'Decline and rise', p. i8i, low grain prices 'have the

effect of redistributing income, in this case from capital and rents to the wage bill. The high real wage is compensated for in depressed land values and low returns to capital, and, eventually unemployment.'



682 R. C. NASH

it does, the same basic analysis to explain the rise of a wide variety of colonial staples. These commodities, however, as Price has recently reminded us, had very different production and market characteristics, and a general approach tends to conceal as much as it reveals about their particular development.'9

So, while an argument based on the income elasticity of demand may fit semi-luxury staples like sugar or tobacco, it is not helpful in the analysis of the European rice market. Rice, as Coclanis himself makes clear, was an inferior good, a substitute for other small grains. This was the view of the commodity held by the British and colonial merchants who organized the trade, and who consistently argued that Carolina rice was consumed by the poorer urban classes as a substitute for cheap bread cereals.20 The critical determinant of demand was therefore the level of European harvests. Poor harvests forced up the price of inferior cereals, which opened up the market for rice, as Laurens explained in I77I:

The distress of the Poor in many parts on the European Continent, for want of provisions, is very great. Hence, it is generally said that Rice must be had at any Price . . . even to the Consumpt of the whole crops of Carolina and Georgia. England can export no corn for their support . . . and no body knows from what part of the World such supplies can be had . . . but at very high prices.2'

These views have been confirmed by the brief comments of historians. They have seen rice as a poverty crop, a grain which was boiled with vegetables to make broth, or ground into meal and mixed with millet or flour to make a cheap breadstuff. In these forms it was habitually eaten by the urban and institutionalized poor, as well as providing in famine years a more widely used emergency substitute.22

The west European demand for rice as a substitute good was therefore influenced by the factors affecting the market for cereals, rather than those which arose as a consequence of economic growth. The first of these was the growth of aggregate demand; it can be assumed that this growth was more likely to have reflected rising population than rising incomes; second, fluctuations in harvest levels; they tended to follow a pan-west European pattern; finally, the availability from the international cereals trade of alternative supplies of rice from the Mediterranean, and of bread cereals from England and the Baltic. It is proposed to deal with these factors within the four sub-periods corresponding to distinct phases in the development of the Carolina trade: i690-I720, I720-40, I740-60, and I760-75.

19 Price, 'Transatlantic economy', p. 32. 20 See Somerset Record Office (hereafter Somerset R.O.), Dickinson Papers, DD/DN 423-452, Graffin

Prankard; Scottish Record Office (hereafter S.R.O.), James Inglis, merchant, business books, I763-80, C.S. 96, 2250, letterbook; Edgar, ed., Letterbook of Robert Pringle, I, p. 238, II, pp. 578,. 746, 8ii; Hamer and Rogers, eds., Henry Laurens, II, p. 489, V, pp. 220, 233, 243, VI, p. 4I4, VIII, pp. II9, 206,

540, IX, p. 578. 21 Hamer and Rogers, eds., Henry Laurens, viii, p. ii9. 22 Braudel, The Mediterranean, I, pp. 595-7; idem, Capitalism, pp. 7I-2; Schama, Embarrassment of

riches, pp. I74-5; Shammas, Pre-industrial consumer, pp. I4I-4; and esp. Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. I33-4. For the recourse to rice in famine years in France see Dardel, Navires, pp. 208-9; Kaplan, Bread, politics, I, pp. 323, 620-I. The only non-essential use of rice was in the famous English rice pudding, cooked with milk and sugar.




Table 2. The European cereals and colonial rice trades ('ooo tons: annual averages)

Grain shipments via English exports of Total of (i) Colonial rice Rice exports as the Sound bread grainsa + (2) exports % of (3)

(I) (2) (3) (4) (5) i680-9 I53,928 I53,928 i690-9 99,864 99,864 I700-9 53,758 26,I56 79,9I4 I7I0-9 48,248 23,333 7I,58I I720-9 73,452 22,058 95,5I0 4,3I2 4.5I I730-9 57,2II 53,2I4 II0,425 9,348 8.46 I740-9 57,347 6i,429 II8,776 I4,07I I.84 I750-9 66,837 63,299 I30,I36 i6,905 I3.00 I760-9 99,932 44,o65 I43,997 26,2I0 I8.20

Notes: the cereals figures have been converted to tons on the basis that i last I0.5 quarters 4,000 lbs. a There were also considerable English exports of malt and barley which were used for brewing and distilling. Sources: cols. I-3: Ormrod, English grain, p. 46; col. 4: see tab. I.

Between I690 and I720 South Carolina rice became established in the world market because exogenous factors caused serious shortfalls in the supply of basic foodstuffs to western Europe. This view, it is true, partly contradicts the conventional interpretation of this period, which argues that the observed decline in the international cereals trade was caused by a fall in aggregate demand, reinforced by an increasing local self-sufficiency in grains. The decline in demand, it is argued, was not large, but it had a striking effect on the cereals trade which was highly marginal to total consumption needs. Hence, shipments of grain from the Baltic, the main supplier at the time, fell away sharply, as is shown in table 2.23 However, the view that the decline in Baltic exports was a response to falling demand hardly fits the evidence. Undoubtedly there was a reduction in west European population, and hence in aggregate demand, but this trend was far outweighed in importance by a series of supply problems. These were decades when poor harvests were very frequent throughout western Europe, causing severe shortages in countries with advanced agriculture like England and Holland, and outright subsistence crises in countries with relatively backward agriculture like France.24 These shortages are reflected in the price data which show prices rising sharply after I690 and then falling away from I720.25 Why then did Baltic exports collapse? The most convincing explanation lies in the exogenous effects of warfare which dominated Baltic trade in this period. First, the Nine Years War (I689-97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (I702-I3) severely interrupted Dutch trade with the

23 For the stress on falling demand see Faber, 'Decline'; Glamann, 'European trade', pp. 46i-7; for more balanced reviews, Ormrod, English grain, pp. 47-8; John, 'English agricultural improvement'.

24 See Chambers, Population, pp. 9I-2; Van Dillen, 'Economic fluctuations', pp. 200-I; Goubert, Louis XIV, pp. 2I5-7, 256-9; Flinn, 'Stabilization', pp. 300-I.

25 See tab. 3. Cereal price fluctuations were also more pronounced than in the preceding and succeeding periods; see Ormrod, English grain, pp. 83-8; and for the French market, Dupdquier, Lachiver, and Meuvret, Mercuriales, pp. 236-7, 240.



684 R. C. NASH

Baltic; in addition the Great Northern War (I700-2i) dislocated trade in the region and reduced grain supplies to ports like Danzig.26

Table 3. Indices of wheat, rye, and rice prices, Europe and America, i670- I779 (I720-9 = Ioo)

Wheat and rye prices Rice prices

Danzig Amsterdam

wheat wheat rye Amsterdam Lisbon Milan Charleston Philadelphia () (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

i670-9 I42a I36a I30a go i680-9 94a 85a II3 86 i690-9 II3a IIIa i6Ia I2I I700-9 I08 I32a I27a I55 I58 I46 I7I0-9 I3I I52a I56a I38 I27 II4 I720-9 I00 IOOa' I00a I00aI'00 I00 Iooa I00 I730-9 I08 99 96 82a M0I I42 I08 86 I740-9 I20 I37 a I34a gga II3 a I58 78 67 I750-9 II3 I23 I24 II8a io6 I55 I08 86 I760-9 I20 I42a I24a Iooa II2a i65 I08 82 I770-9 I4I i6o I54 II9 II8 223 I29 94

Notes: col. I: export prices in shillings per Winchester quarter; cols. 2-3: Konigsberg wheat and rye prices, in guilders per last; col. 4: unweighted average of three series: Amsterdam bourse, Milanese rice in guilders per I00 pond; St Catherine's Hospital and Municipal Orphanage, unspecified rice in guilders per pond; the three rice series move in close conjunction; col. 5: in reis per arratel, I670-I749 data are for Dec. prices only; col. 6: in lire per moggia; col. 7: in shillings per cwt. of I00 lbs.; col. 8, in shillings per cwt. of II2 lbs. a quotations for fewer than ten years. Sources: col. I: Accounts and Papers (P.P. i826-7, XVI), p. 268; cols. 2-3: Posthumus, Inquiry, I, pp. I-3, I6-8; col. 4: ibid., I, pp. 40-I, II, pp. 465-6, 785-94: col. 5: Serrao, Dictionario, I, p. 506; Godinho, Prix et monnaies, tab. 5; col. 6: de Maddalena, Prezzi e mercedi, p. 383; cols. 7-8: see notes to tab. I.

High cereals prices had an invigorating effect on the rice market, where prices also rose sharply between I690 and I720 (table 3). The chief suppliers of rice to this growing market were the eastern Mediterranean and especially northern Italy. Rice had been grown in Italy since at least the sixteenth century, but it was not until c. I650 that it became a major crop in its chief production centres, Lombardy and Piedmont. This development has been explained as a response to the acute depression which gripped north Italian agriculture in the middle decades of the seventeenth century.27 But if low prices initially stimulated production, the major expansion of the industry took place in an era of high prices: as in Lombardy where by I720 output had increased to between I5,000 and 20,000 tons (table 4). This rice was sold in the Italian peninsula, as well as being exported, mainly to France but also to northern Europe.28

26 For the Dutch, who were of course the major traders with the area, see Ormrod, English grain, p. 6i. For the Great Northern War, see Price, 'Map of commerce'; Gierowski and Kaminski, 'Eclipse', pp. 704-5; Kellenbenz, Rise, p. 325. For the recovery of Danzig exports at the end of the Great Northern War, see Accounts and papers referring to corn and grain (P.P. I826-7, XVI), pp. 290-I.

27 Sella, Crisis and continuity, pp. I2I-2. 28 For the Lombardy industry see Faccini, L'economia risicola; de Maddalena, Prezzi e mercedi, pp. 93-

III; Sella and Capra, Storia d'Italia, pp. 238-9. For late seventeenth-century Dutch rice imports, see Brugsman, 'Statistiek', p. I70; Posthumus, 'Statistiek van Rotterdam', p. 535.



SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY 685 Table 4. Rice harvests in Lombardy and Piedmont, I7i6-I779 (m. lbs.: annual averages)

Lombardy Piedmont Total (I) (2) (3)

I7i6-9 37. I05

I720-9 32-773 I730-9 33.84I I740-9 40-575 63.088a I03.663 I750-9 48.836 66-453 I I5.289 I760-9 60.355 67-392 I27.747 I 770-9 59.929 74.562 I 34.49 I

Notes: the data are for rice harvested as notified by producers to the central authority. For discussion of the reliability of these data see Faccini, L'economia risicola, pp. 23-5; de Maddalena, Prezzi e mercedi, pp. 95-6.

The statistics are for 'risone', i.e. rough or paddy rice, as opposed to the figures for Carolina exports, which are for clean rice. For comparison with the latter, the Italian data have been converted to clean rice equivalents, on the basis that the ratio of rough to clean rice was i62:ioo, as suggested in US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics, II, p. ii63. Lombardy data are in moggia of I .46 hectolitres; those for Piedmont in sacchi of I . I 5 hectolitres. a figures for I746-9 only Sources: col. I: Bellati, 'Sull'incremento', pp. 276-7; col. 2: Davico, 'Peuple' et notables, pp. i6I-2.

It was in this era of high prices that Carolina became established as a minor supplier to the world rice market. The short-run market position for Carolina c. I700 is depicted in figure I. In the world market for rice (b) the demand curve is depicted as a sloping one (Di). However, from the point of view of the Carolina producers (a), demand appears to be perfectly elastic (Di). At this point Carolina was a marginal producer and we can therefore assume that its industry was a price taker in the European market. One should also note that it is probable that supply in Carolina was more inelastic than in the world market as a whole, because the short-run supply of land and labour was relatively more inflexible.29 Between I690 and I720 rising demand for inferior cereals led to a sharp increase in the demand for rice. This had the effect of shifting the world demand curve from Di to Dii; while in Carolina demand shifted from Di to Dii, with a corresponding increase in supply from Qi to Qii. Although there are few price data for American markets before I720, prices probably rose in response to European trends. It is particularly notable that Carolina exports took off in I709-II, when harvest failures in Europe were pushing up rice and cereals prices to crisis levels. Carolina's entry into the international cereals market bears out the initial prediction of the staples thesis, that colonial production becomes viable when there is a sharp increase in metropolitan staple prices. But these price increases reflected exogenous disturbances to supply rather than the growth of aggregate demand.

Between I720 and I740 trends in the European cereals market reverted

29 As new land had to be cleared, and new labourers imported from Africa. One could only test this assumption if sufficient data existed to compare the relative supply elasticities of the Italian and Carolina industries.



686 R. C. NASH

(a) South Carolina (b) World market

S

S

P2-

P X t t 9 |

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dii

Qi Qii Qi Qii

Figure I. World and Carolina rice market, c. I700

to a more stable pattern. First, the incidence of poor harvests was much smaller than in previous decades. This is reflected in the price data which show a fall both in the average decadal prices and in year-to-year fluctuations.30 Second, the end of the Great Northern War saw a large increase in Baltic grain exports to western Europe, which grew by 50 per cent between I7i0-9 and I720-9. In the I730s warfare once again reduced Baltic supplies, but this shortfall was more than made up for by English exports of bread cereals which, for the first time, reached very high levels.3' The repercussions for rice of an enlarged supply and reduced demand are clear: prices fell sharply in the two major third-party markets, Lisbon and Amsterdam. In the north Italian production centres, however, prices followed a different course. In Milan prices fell modestly in the I720S, but then increased abruptly in the I730s and I740s. This was the result of exogenous factors-warfare and climatic disasters- which caused acute problems in Lombardy agriculture in these years.32

The situation faced by colonial rice producers was therefore a mixed one, and quite different from that prevailing before I720. The international supply of cereals was now adequate to meet the demands of a stagnating market, and prices had declined; on the other hand, the crisis in Lombardy's agriculture had led to Italian prices getting out of line with trends in the other major

30 See tab. 3, and for price fluctuations, see references in n. 25. 31 See tab. 2. On the volatility of Baltic exports in the I730S see Black, 'Grain exports', pp. 594-6. 32 On politico-economic conditions in Lombardy see Sella and Capra, Storia d'Italia, pp. 24I-77, and

esp. de Maddalena, Prezzi e mercedi, pp. 95-III, I52-3, demonstrating the problems faced in the I730S and I740s in meeting even the internal demand for cereals and rice. For increases in rice and grain prices in Piedmont in the I730S and I740s see Davico, 'Peuple' et notables, p. I42.




markets. Clearly, if Carolina could boost production at constant or falling prices, then its rice industry would be in a position to replace northern Italy as the major supplier to third-party markets. This appears to be what happened. First, American rice prices drifted downwards until the early I740s, while those of northern Italy rose sharply.33 Second, between c. I720 and c. I740 Carolina rice exports increased fivefold as it became a major supplier in the European rice market. The greater part of Carolina exports was consigned, in the first instance, to England. But as table 5 shows, little rice at this stage was retained for domestic consumption, the great bulk being re-exported to Germany and above all to Holland.34 Italian production remained rather larger than that in the colonies; but Italian exports remained at a low level, showing no signs of recovery until late in the eighteenth century.35

The colonial industry's dynamic, in this its most rapid period of development, is not therefore to be sought in increasing world demand, but rather in changes occurring on the supply side, which allowed it to capture a much larger share of a stagnant market. This success was assisted by a fundamental reorganization of colonial production, which resulted in major gains in labour productivity. A fuller discussion of these changes is reserved for the second section of this paper, but it is necessary at this point to suggest the scale of the gains achieved. Table 6, columns 9 and IO, provides data on the volume of exports of staples per head of the slave population, which act as a proxy for slave labour productivity in Carolina agriculture.36 These show that between I7io and I730 export output per slave increased by more than 200 per cent. These gains in productivity underpinned substantial rightward shifts in the industry's supply curve, allowing the colonial producers to maintain an elastic long-run supply of competitively priced rice.

In the period I740-60 there was an increase in average grain prices in Europe, a reflection of rising population, especially in southern Europe, and of a number of years of scarcity caused by poor harvests in the early I740S and late I750s.37 The European cereals trade expanded; combined exports of bread grains from the Baltic and England grew slightly in the I740S and substantially in the I750s. Carolina gained no benefit from these changes in European markets, with total rice exports stagnating between c. I740 and c. I760. The dominant influence on Carolina's economy in these years was warfare. In wartime freight and insurance charges rose three- or fourfold,

33 See tab. 3; Taylor, 'Wholesale commodity prices', pp. 360-6. 34 The combination of the British re-export data, and Dutch import figures for I753 and I774, the

only pre-I780 years for which Dutch statistics exist, shows that Britain had supplanted Mediterranean sources as Holland's major rice supplier. See Van Nierop, 'Uit de bakermat', p. 84; Dobelaar, 'Statistiek', p. 225; Posthumus, 'Statistiek van Amsterdam', p. 525. For the substitution of English and Dutch rice supplies for Mediterranean sources in the French market, see Dardel, Navires, p. 208; Morineau, 'Balance du commerce', p. 2I3.

35 For the stagnation of Lombardy's production until c. I750 see tab. 4, but note that Lombardy lost part of its rice-producing areas to Piedmont in I738-44. Lombardy rice exports were 5.98 million lbs. in I744 and averaged only 6.67 million in I759-62; see Bellati, 'Sull'incremento', pp. 25I, 28i; compare with Carolina exports in tab. I. Piedmont rice exports were of little significance until the late eighteenth century; see Davico, 'Peuple' et notables, pp. 2I3-2I; idem, 'Populations marginales', pp. 483, 487.

36 For a full discussion of the data see appendix. 37 North Italian production increased from the I740s, although largely for the home market. See

tab. 4.



688 R. C. NASH

Table 5. The English import and re-export trades in rice, I7I6-I774 (m. lbs.: annual averages)

English imports from English re-exports to Domestic consumption

Other All northern Southern Total

Carolina colonies Holland Germany Europe Europe (I) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)

I7i6-9 2.54 3.i6 I.Ii i.i6 0.45 0.32 3.04 0.I2 I720-3 6.52 7.i8 2.50 i.67 0.77 0.76 6.io i.o8 I724-7 7.52 7.73 3.20 2.27 0.48 0.53 6.48 I.25 I728-3I I4.32 I4.66 6.33 3-53 I.33 I.5I I2.70 i.96 I732-5 I2.44 I2.53 5-57 3.80 I.I2 0.99 II.48 I.05 I736-9 I9.22 I9.29 8.39 5.29 2.33 I.58 I7.59 I.70 I740-4 26.47 26.76 I4.I4 5.6i 3.04 I.74 24.53 2.23 I745-7 II.35 II.48 3_92a 4.II o.86 0.57 I0.20 I.28 I748-5I I7.54 I7.8I 8.27 5.96 I.84 I.I0 I7.I7 o.64 I752-5 26.94 27.46 I3.27 6.87 2.8I 2.I7 25.I2 2.34 I756-9 II.95 I3.27 5-44 3.58 i.i8 0.4I io.6i 2.66 I760-3 I9.9I 2I.48 9.69 6.68 2.I0 0.49 I8.96 2.53 I764-7 29-75 33-74 I5.8o 7.26 3.36 I.65 28.07 5.66 I768-7I 37-55 44.78 25.I8 5-55 4.89 I.38 37.00 7.80 I772-4 4I.94 50.8I 26.I7 5-23 4.07 3.I6 38.63 I2.I8

Notes: col. 2: the increase in imports of rice after I763 from sources other than S. Carolina came mainly from Georgia; cols. 5-6: northern Europe includes France, the Baltic countries, and Ireland; southern Europe includes Spain, Portugal, and points southward. a The figure of outport exports to Holland for I744 (Customs 3/44), is far too large and has been discarded as an obvious transcription error. For I744 it has been assumed that re-exports to Holland bore the same proportion to total re-exports as an average of I743 and I745. Sources: cols. I-7: P.R.O., Inspectors'-General ledgers of imports and exports, Customs 3/I8-74; US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics, II, p. II93; col. 8 is col. 2 - col. 7.

an increase in distribution costs which blunted the edge of Carolina's competitiveness in European grain markets.38 The position of the Carolina industry is depicted in figure 2.39 From the perspective of the producers the increase in distribution costs was perceived as a movement of demand in Charleston from D'fob to D"fob, with a corresponding decline in Carolina prices and output from, respectively, Pi to Pii and Qi to Qii.40 The data on rice prices and exports in the war years bear these assumptions out, with the collapse of exports to Holland being particularly notable.4'

Indeed, the depression in the Carolina industry would have been even more intense if there had not been a substantial wartime diversion of exports to alternative markets in the colonies and southern Europe. We have two sets of data relating to these markets. The first is my estimates of South Carolina exports to 'other markets' given in table 7, columns 7-8; the second is Clowse's data on distribution of Charleston's rice exports summarized in

38 For freight and insurance rates see the mercantile papers cited in n. 20. 39 It is assumed, given that Carolina had achieved a major share of the world rice market, that the

demand curve facing colonial producers c. I750 was now a sloping one. 40 This follows the detailed analysis of Shepherd and Walton, Shipping, maritime trade, pp. 21-3. For

convenience the demand curve in Europe and the curve of derived demand in the colony are included in the same figure.

41 See tab. i and tab. 5.




8 1-4 stt sa %_ mv

8:1 2 9 A E E |~~~~~~

< t {;, x N N ?? N O o F m ? Q E~~~~0 4;i m xxx0 c y

I:~~~~~~c 4o a- a- a- Ba cl + tz

;o,^ B Ni - 00 en ' N 0 t Bis

;a 0oo aN o V) tl 7 6b* SX

2 <, q m N ? o ? ? ? a Y; S >, ~~~~, -

D4 r 0XONO1E

o oN o ot o o F S t Q o Z S



690 R. C. NASH

Piv.__, B

Ki 0 SlCuFob

Pi

Phi

D'F,,b

D"F~b

Qii Qi

Figure 2. Carolina rice market, c. I 750

table 8. These figures show that the alternative markets took up to half of Carolina's exports in war years; when peace resumed there was a strong tendency for exports to fall back. Thus, exports to colonial markets, which stood at 4 per cent of the total in I736-8, increased in the war years, and at their peak in I760-2 were absorbing about one-third of overall trade. The main colonial demand came from the British West Indies, where the sugar planters were attempting to diversify the sources of food imports for the growing slave population. They were no doubt stimulated into doing so by the very low price of rice in the I740s, which made it more competitive as a basic foodstuff.42 The Caribbean market was further extended by wartime exports to conquered colonies like Cuba and Guadeloupe; the importance of this trade was recognized in the I764 act, which legalized rice exports to foreign colonies in peacetime. The southern European market-mainly Portugal-had first become important after I73I when the rules on enumeration had been relaxed to permit direct exports from Carolina.43 These exports continued at a high level in the war years, even though this trade, like that to northern Europe, was affected by higher wartime costs. However, the costs of supplying grain to southern Europe from England and the Baltic also increased in wartime, thereby no doubt easing the relative cost pressure on Carolina rice exports.44

42 For the mid-century growth of the British Caribbean slave population see McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, p. I54.

43 For the Portuguese market for foodstuffs see Fisher, Portugal trade, pp. I7-8, 64-76. Fisher assumes that there was no increase in colonial food exports to Portugal until I760; this is incorrect as far as rice exports are concerned.

44 For the difficulties faced by the grain trade to southern Europe in wartime see Ormrod, English grain, p. 27.



SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY 69I

i | i S s o 00 el 00 \ O N ON - ON ?o0 | 0

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b tt H Q Q t d~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ t: t m tm o mm F o H ? o X N W~~~~~~~VW " t 0;

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t o S F o m t t o o N W-- ~~~~~~~~~0 ww o +

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>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- o- 0 cn 0 N o /S < E H H 00 cE r i H H onvH u oo 4- (n

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2 2 M X~~~0 o mN t m 00 co O %nvoW 4 X C) e mo N Ft + N? N N N X t~~~~~~~~~-a ts ~iQ

k at o X mm0 Ht O om FrN o . Y Q Y 0 =4-1 C E 4 ~ > < ~ N N ~ N m t t X ?; g 8

t t ?? to 9 t ffi iS F 8 :< ? t vo

< E N ~ N m m t X = 9.Au o X X ou

X~~~~~~~~~~ m, 6 d, c- m Oi O, . ^; 1

% ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~e en ,I ,I v) , i) u

O ? *t F t N ot H Ft H o o F . C 0 S S ?J,. 'A S

c 0 .w ;: * 0

CA) 4- , u O.";Sa

D -O N tn' < ca ? ?~~~\O 0N 4 ..............~~~~~0 elnV o )V)oo t- ..* 0 4- .ti- , t o N otooN o oo> O , =O k N tlt tll ??F Qc ++ 0W H~~~~~~~~~~~~- > > ...<



692 R. C. NASH

Table 8. Charleston's rice exports to American and European markets, I7I7- I762 (m. lbs.: annual average)

Great % Southern % West % Mainland % Total Britain Europe Indies colonies

I7I7-20, I724 3.728 76 0.484 I0 0.702 I4 4.9I4 I73I-5 I3.2I7 70 4.667 25 0.6I2 3 0.498 3 I8.994 I736-8 I4.349 8o 2.958 I6 0.340 2 0.267 2 I7-9I4 I758-60 I7.933 56 7.407 23 3.7I2 I2 3.230 I0 32.282 I762-3 25.I75 5I 6.656 I3 I0.787 22 7.I53 I4 49-77I I766, I768-9 32.o63 55 I5.756 27 8.I75 I4 2.0I7 3 58.oiI I770-2 36.0I4 56 I0.502 I6 I3.745 2I 4.I75 7 64-436

Note: The source gives figures in barrels, which have been converted to lbs. on the basis suggested in US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics, II, pp. II63-4. Source: Clowse, Measuring Charleston's commerce, pp. 59-62.

In the years I760-75 European market conditions changed in a number of ways which proved to be highly favourable for the colonial rice industry. Aggregate demand for foodstuffs was increasing in Europe, partly because of growing population and partly because of a number of very deficient harvests, notably in I767-8 and I77I-2. In response Baltic grain exports reached peak eighteenth-century levels, with Russian exports being mobilized on a massive scale in deficit years.45 Carolina exports followed suit; the growth of trade with Holland was especially rapid, with rice re-exports trebling between I760-3 and I772-4.46 Furthermore, Britain's position in international markets was also undergoing a fundamental change, as it moved from being a major exporter to being a substantial net importer of foodstuffs. This trend was of great benefit to Carolina. Until the late I760s colonial rice had been virtually kept out of the British market by high duties, designed to protect the interests of domestic producers of cereals. But the poor British harvest of I767 persuaded Parliament to remove the import duties on rice. As a result substantial quantities of rice were thereafter retained for British home consumption. This gave the rice trade an additional fillip, ensuring that prices and speculative trade would reach a peak in pre-revolutionary Charleston.47 The rice industry's response to these demand changes was impressive, with total Carolina exports increasing by 50 per cent from c. I760 to c. I775.

II

The foregoing argument has suggested that the colonial industry's dynamic is not to be found in increasing world demand: it is only during the last of

45 See tab. 2; Kahan, Plow, p. i69. 46 See tab. 5. 47 For English retained imports see tab. 5, col. 8. The rice duty was 6s. 43d. per cwt., more than 50

per cent of the C.I.F. price c. I770. For the duties and for the effects of their removal, see Harper, 'The effect', p. 23; Hamer and Rogers, eds., Henry Laurens, v, p. 5I4; VI, pp. I30-I; VII, pp. 539-40; Simmons and Thomas, eds., Proceedings, II, p. 458; III, pp. 435-6, 458.




the four sub-periods (I760-75) that increased European demand can be shown to have played a decisive part in shaping the course of South Carolina exports. Rather, the major influences on colonial exports were changes on the supply side, both in the European cereals trade, as shown above, and in the colonial rice industry, a subject which now needs to be discussed in greater detail. The staples model postulates that increasing supplies of rice would come from two sources: first, and most importantly, from extensive growth, as unemployed reserves of land were combined with imported supplies of labour and capital; second, from intensive growth, as existing resources were used more efficiently.

The bulk of increased rice production in South Carolina did indeed come from extensive growth. In the early eighteenth century the basic resource, land, could be acquired very cheaply through grants. But by c. I740, and in some areas well before that date, the bulk of land useful for rice production had apparently been patented.48 Subsequently rice land had to be acquired through purchase from planters and speculators. We know almost nothing about this emerging land market but one important, and hitherto unexploited source, the loyalist compensation claims, shows that on the eve of the Revolution many planters held large reserves of unimproved rice land, generally valued at between I5s. and 20s. per acre.49 So while the cost of acquiring land was undoubtedly increasing, the supply seems to have been adequate to meet the demand for expanding rice production.50

But throughout the colonial period the problem was not acquiring land but rather obtaining the labour with which to develop it. The most costly investment in rice production was the plantation slave labour force; in c. I760 the value of slaves accounted for 5I per cent of the average inventoried planter's personal wealth, and 34 per cent of his total wealth.5' Between I7io and I770 the slave population of South Carolina, the great bulk of which was employed in staple production, increased from about 6,ooo to about 75,000. For most of this period the slave population experienced natural decrease and therefore black population growth was dependent on slave imports which in the period I7IO-70 numbered about 70,000.52 These slaves were supplied by British merchants to Charleston dealers, who in turn depended on being able to draw on long-term credit in London.53 As the

48 Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. 68-70; Terry, ' "Champaign County" ', p. 88; Weir, Colonial South Carolina, pp. I47-9.

49 Data taken from transcripts of the Commission of Enquiry into Losses of American Loyalists among the Audit Office Records, P.R.O., made for the New York Public Library, microfilm, vols. 52-7, South Carolina (hereafter Loyalist transcripts).

50 It has been estimated by Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, p. 255, that at its peak the colonial rice industry would have required fewer than ioo,ooo acres of land for its cultivation.

51 Calculated from Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. 84-8, 95. Land made up 33 per cent of total wealth. However, the value of land consisted mainly of the slave labour which had been embodied in improving it.

52 For slave population data see tab. 6. For slave imports, US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics, II, pp. I I73-4, supplemented from P.R.O., South Carolina: original correspondence, Board of Trade, CO5/366, fo. I i8.

53 For the organization of the slave trade see Donnan, 'The slave trade'; idem, ed., Documents illustrative, IV, p. 266, n. 4, and pp. 292-3; Hamer and Rogers, eds., Henry Laurens. For examples of large debts owed to British merchants see ibid., v, pp. 320, 535; Loyalist transcripts, LIV, pp. 266-72, Dupont; pp. 509-37, Hopton; LVI, pp. 578-85, Leger and Greenwood.



694 R. C. NASH

staple model predicts, then, the extensive growth of the Carolina rice industry relied throughout the period on the mobilization of international supplies of capital and labour. But slaves, like land, became more costly during the period. Recent studies of the Carolina plantation system have generated surprisingly little information about slave prices, but we do know that the cost of newly imported slaves into Charleston rose by about 40 per cent between c. I750 and c. I770.54 However, the inflationary effect of rising land and labour costs appears to have been largely offset by considerable improvements in productivity.

Exponents of the staples thesis have usually allotted only a limited role to productivity gains in colonial agriculture. Shepherd and Walton summarize the position for staple production as follows: '[Long-run costs] decline over a limited range, remain constant as long as new "best quality" lands are available near cheap water transport, and finally begin to rise as lower quality lands and interior lands facing high land transportation costs are brought into production.'55 Nevertheless, a number of historians, most recently Coclanis, have noted that rice appears to provide an important exception to the general rule that productivity change in colonial agriculture was slow or non-existent.56 No overall measure of the growth in productivity, however, has been attempted. Ideally, such a study would utilize data on relative changes in plantation inputs and outputs to measure gains in total factor productivity. Work of this nature has been undertaken for agriculture in Pennsylvania and New England; but the data currently available do not permit such estimates for Carolina.57 The second best option is followed here: that is, the provision of estimates of the volume of exports of slave- produced commodities, from which can be derived indices of the volume of exports per slave. This provides a useful, if admittedly crude, guide to the main trends in labour productivity.58 The data show that exports per slave increased very rapidly in I7I0-30 and in I750-70, both periods of rapid growth in aggregate output; much slower trade growth and static productivity prevailed in the intervening years.

The likely causes of these productivity gains are an increase in the inputs of land and capital per unit of labour; an increase in the labour force's skill level and intensity of work effort; technical improvements in cultivation and processing; and the growth of average plantation size with consequent returns to scale.59

Recent studies of Carolina agriculture have provided some information on

54 Donnan, 'Slave trade,' pp. 8I0-4. See also the price data on imported slaves for the colonies as a whole in US Bureau of the Census, Historical statistics, II, p. II74, which show a similar increase in prices.

5 Shepherd and Walton, Shipping, maritime trade, p. i6. 56 See McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. I78, i8o-i; Egnal, 'Economic

development', p. 273; Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. 94-8. For studies showing long-term gains in efficiency in other staple industries see Menard, 'Tobacco industry', pp. I44-7; Ward, West Indian slavery, pp. i90-8.

57 McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. 266-7. 58 See above, tab. 6; and for a discussion of these estimates, see appendix. 59 On the causes of increased productivity in colonial agriculture see Ward, West Indian slavery,

pp. I92-3, and esp. Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. 9I-4, which is drawn on heavily in the following paragraphs.



SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE ATLANTIC ECONOMY 695 the relative growth of inputs of land and capital which has been carefully analysed by Coclanis.60 He concludes that it is impossible to be certain whether or not land inputs per caput increased. We know that rice plantations were large, and probably getting larger, but this tells us very little about the quantity of land actually in production. We can be sure only that rice and indigo were grown on previously uncultivated land, and that the area used never amounted to more than a tiny fraction of the available land. As for capital inputs, it appears that planters' holdings of capital goods increased sharply in absolute terms, and as a proportion of total real wealth. Thus the percentage of personal wealth held in capital goods increased from I I to i6 per cent between c. I720 and c. I760, although there may have been a decline thereafter.

The most thorough studies of the plantation labour system have been made by Morgan and Wood.6' They show that the work effort required was greatly intensified in the early eighteenth century, when slave labour was shifted to rice production, which involved the most arduous work regime of any of the mainland staples. There was also an important change in labour supervision in the late colonial period when the task system became the normal method by which slave labour was organized; this development may well have lowered supervision costs, as well as offering slaves an incentive to increase their work effort. Morgan has also indicated that there was a late colonial improvement in the skill level of slaves as a higher proportion of them came to specialize in artisan production.62 It has also frequently been claimed that work intensity was further increased after c. I750 by the introduction of indigo production on rice estates; the point being that the work schedules of the two staples were complementary, with indigo demanding its peaks of labour during periods of slackness in rice production. However, Morgan is doubtful whether the practice of combining the two forms of production was widespread. Certainly, the large sample of estate inventories found in the loyalist compensation claims shows that the hybrid rice/indigo plantation was very rare.63

A number of historians have commented on the technical advances made in rice cultivation and processing. The major gains in output involved a two- stage shift in the location of rice production. First, in c. I7IO-c. I730, when exports per slave were increasing most rapidly, production was being switched from dry upland meadows to swamps in the low-lying flood plains under systems of intermittent irrigation. This produced higher yields per slave labourer, both by supplying more consistent moisture and because of the higher natural fertility of newly drained land.64 Second, from c. I750, when further productivity gains were made, tidal cultivation was spreading quite

60 Ibid., pp. 94-6. 61 Morgan, 'Development of slave culture'; idem, 'Black society'; idem, 'Work and culture'; Wood,

Black majority, pp. 55-62, 79. 62 Morgan, 'Development of slave culture', pp. Io0-7; idem, 'Black society', p. 97. 63 Morgan, 'Development of slave culture', pp. 86-8, 96. For rare examples of estates growing both

rice and indigo see Loyalist transcripts, LVI, pp. 297-8, Harvey; LVII, pp. i66-9, Bull. 64 Coon, 'Development', pp. I77-83; Clowse, Economic beginnings, pp. I23-30; Hilliard, 'Antebellum

rice', pp. 94, 97-8, I04; Clifton, 'Rice industry', p. 274; Gray, Agriculture, I, pp. 289-90; Whitten, 'American rice', p. 6; Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, pp. 96-7.



696 R. C. NASH

rapidly in coastal areas; a method of cultivation that increased output through its provision of continuous irrigation and because it tended to raise rather than exhaust soil fertility.65 Progress was also made in the use of processing machinery. Wind fans-used to winnow the grain-appeared early in the eighteenth century and were almost universal on larger estates by the Revolution. Hand mills were also extensively used to remove the outer husk of the rice; and there is evidence to show that after c. I740 large-scale machines were introduced for the more vital task of removing the inner husk-rice pounding-which otherwise required much labour.66

It has been generally assumed that American rice production enjoyed considerable returns to scale. However, as Coclanis points out, the evidence available for the colonial period cannot support the kind of econometric analyses of the subject undertaken for the antebellum era. But it does show that the introduction of rice was accompanied by a very rapid rise to dominance of the large-scale plantation.67 Colony-wide data are provided by Morgan's remarkably comprehensive study of Carolina probate inventories. He shows that as early as the I720s a high proportion of slaves (29 per cent) was employed on plantations with 30 or more slaves. By the I740S this proportion had nearly doubled to 54 per cent, after which the rate of concentration slowed down. A similar trend towards rapid concentration in the I7I0-40 period has been detected in studies of particular rice parishes.68 The speed with which these large estates emerged, and the absence of rice production on farms with few or no slaves, suggests that the distribution of slaves reflected a pattern of efficiency rather than one of unequal wealth distribution.

III

In concluding, we need to place the rice industry in the context of the Atlantic economy of which it was a part, by comparing its commercial development with that of the two major British-American plantation staples- sugar and tobacco. During the eighteenth century the large growth of sugar production in the British West Indies was almost entirely absorbed by rising demand in the British home market, where per caput consumption increased about fourfold from c. I 700 to c. I 770.69 The sources of this growing demand for sugar in the protected home market are not fully understood, but the

65 For examples of the much higher valuations of tidal as opposed to swamp rice acreage, see Loyalist transcripts, LIII, p. 549, Saxby; LIV, pp. I47-50, Ogilvie; LVI, p. 58i, Greenwood; LVII, pp. i67-9, Bull.

66 See Terry, ' "Champaign County" ', pp. i6o, 277, and esp. Morgan, 'Development of slave culture', pp. 73-4. The major developments in large-scale rice milling came after the Revolution; see Dethloff, Rice industry, pp. 30-4.

67 Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, p. 98; for the ante-bellum rice industry, see Swan, Structure. 68 Morgan, 'Development of slave culture', p. 2; Waterhouse, 'Economic growth', has confirmed the

critical significance of the period I7I0-40 for the concentration of slave ownership. For rice parishes, see Morgan, 'A profile', p. 54; Wood, Black majority, pp. 146, I49; Terry, ' "Champaign County"', p. 249.

69 Richardson, 'Slave trade', p. I I2; Shammas, Pre-industrial consumer, p. 82. Sugar re-exports declined in the early eighteenth century and remained at a low level for the rest of the colonial period. Of course, the British producers had the priceless advantage of a monopoly of their domestic market, created by the high duties on foreign sugars entering Britain.




main factors appear to have been a combination of rising real incomes, and a change in consumer preferences which favoured tea and other non-alcoholic beverages sweetened with sugar. The inverse movement of sugar imports and prices in the domestic market over lengthy periods also suggests that the British planters achieved some gains in productivity which, by lowering prices, made a further contribution to increased consumption.70 The growth of the eighteenth-century British colonial tobacco industry also mainly depended on growing demand, although this was generated in the re-export rather than in the domestic market, where demand proved to be stubbornly inelastic. Indeed, it is likely that English per caput tobacco consumption, adjusted for smuggling, declined slightly in the eighteenth century, while re-exports to the continent increased from about 20 million lbs. in c. I700 to about 8o million lbs. c. I770.71 The major re-export markets were in France, Germany, and the Low Countries, where there was a growing demand for Chesapeake tobacco which was more expensive than the rival European product but of a much better quality. That rising demand, rather than increasing productivity, was the major source of growth for the colonial tobacco industry is further indicated by the fact that for the greater part of the period there was a strong positive correlation between Chesapeake prices and exports.72

It can therefore be seen that while the three major plantation staple industries all enjoyed rapid growth in the eighteenth century, the forces shaping their development were very different. Sugar and tobacco expanded on the basis of growing demand, which reflected a combination of rising real incomes for the mass of the British population, who were a captive market for West Indian sugar producers, and the striking changes which occurred in the pattern of consumer preferences, both in Britain and on the continent. The growth of the rice industry, however, did not depend to any great degree on shifts in demand, at least before I760. Until that date the Carolina rice planter, unlike the sugar and tobacco producer, was discrimi- nated against in the British market, where duties on colonial rice were kept at a punitive level to protect domestic farmers. On the continent, where the great bulk of Carolina rice had to be sold, the major influences on the market were not changes in demand but rather exogenous disturbances to supply, both of rice from the Mediterranean and of bread grains from north-west Europe and the Baltic, for which rice was a substitute. These disturbances stemmed from the effects of climate and warfare. It is indeed only in the period 1760-75 that we find unambiguous evidence of an increase in demand for Carolina rice, a reflection of the rapid rise in European population and of the decision to remove the British duties on colonial rice. Changing supply conditions in Carolina, namely the gains made in productivity on rice plantations, also contributed to the success of the colonial industry, in the eighteenth century. The gains are difficult to measure, but the tentative

70 See McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, pp. 158-60; Ward, West Indian slavery, pp. 190-8.

71 Nash, 'English and Scottish tobacco trades'; Price, France and the Chesapeake, ii, pp. 845-8. 72 Chesapeake exports and prices rose in I7I0-25, remained relatively stable in I725-45, and then

increased sharply in I745-75; see McCusker and Menard, Economy of British America, p. I2I.



698 R. C. NASH

estimates advanced above suggest that progress was greatest before I730 and after I750. These gains would have made two major contributions to the industry's ability to establish and maintain a large share of the European rice market. First, they would have boosted plantation profits enabling planters after c. I7IO, in an era of stable or falling prices, to sustain the high level of investment needed to finance the rapid extension of production.73 Second, productivity gains would have gone some way to offset the inflation of factor costs experienced during expansionary phases, especially in the period after c. I750. Without these improvements rice prices would have risen faster in the colonial period, inevitably restricting the industry's success in carving out a niche in the competitive European cereals market.

University of Manchester

APPENDIX: Slave-produced exports and the productivity of Carolina agriculture

The great majority of Carolina slaves were used in the production of three staples-rice, indigo, and naval stores. Data on the volume of exports of these staples per slave should therefore provide a guide to trends in the productivity of slave labour.74 The figures presented in table 6, columns I-3, show that this index increased rapidly until c. I730; but thereafter, because of a change in the mix of

Table Ai. Volume of staple exports per slave (1768-72 = roo)

Index of Index of Index of value of volume of export aggregate Commodity aggregate Slave pop. volume per exports price index exports index slave

(I) (2) (3) (4) (5) I750 32 82 39 52 75 I760 52 8o 66 76 87 I770 I00 I00 I00 I00 I00

staples, it becomes impossible to say, at a glance, whether the volume of per caput exports was increasing or not. It is therefore necessary to reduce the separate series of exports to a single index. For the period I750-70, this can be achieved in a

73 We lack studies of the operating costs of South Carolina plantations. However, Gray and Wood, 'The transition', estimates profits on Georgia rice plantations c. I750 at the high level of 24-43 per cent. For contemporary estimates of the profitability of colonial Carolina rice plantations, showing net returns of between I2.5 and 33.5 per cent, see Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, p. I4I.

74 Assuming: (a) that the proportion of staples retained for internal use did not change over time; (b) that the data on South Carolina exports are not inflated by shipments of staples produced in Georgia and North Carolina. Such shipments did occur, but were insignificant before I730, reached their peak C. I730-50, when the index of productivity shows no upward movement, and declined relatively thereafter with the rise of Savannah and in its context Port Brunswick. It should also be noted that small quantities of slave labour continued to be employed in livestock farming in the low country after c. I7I0, or were used in the back country production of hemp and tobacco after c. I75o; and that a near-constant proportion of the slave population-about io per cent-was resident in Charleston; see Morgan, 'Black life', p. i88. White labour was not used to produce the major staples except in a supervisory role.




conventional manner by constructing an index of the value of exports, which is then deflated by a commodity price index.75 The results are shown in table Ai.

Column 5 indicates a substantial growth in the volume of per caput exports, which increased by about one-third in 20 years. Unfortunately, we cannot apply this method to the period before I750, both because the absence of indigo exports makes it impossible to devise a satisfactorily weighted commodity price index, and because of the lack of price data for naval stores before I733. To construct a long- term index we need a less direct method. The assumption is made that the long-term ratio of the prices of the different commodities reflects the ratio of their volume (i.e. the ratio of inputs, including labour inputs, required to produce a unit of each commodity). On this basis the volume of exports per head was estimated in the following fashion, taking the years I748-52 as an illustration.76

Ratio of prices, I 733-I77477 Rice = 6s. iod. per cwt. = i volume unit Indigo = 3s. 7d. per lb. = 0.52 volume unit Naval stores = 6s. io'd. a barrel = i.oi volume unit

Number of volume units exported, I748-I752

Rice Naval stores Indigo

(304,o80 cwts x i) + (I7,630 brls x + (57,460 lbs x 0.52) i.oi)

304,o80 + I7,806 + 29,879 = total of 35I,765 units.

Aggregate number of units 35I,765 Number of units per slave = b = 9.02. Number of slaves 395000

This exercise was repeated for the other five-year periods: the results are presented in table 6, columns 8-9.

After I750 it is possible to compare the two indices, as in columns 9 and IO; they both show an increase in the volume of exports per head, albeit at different rates. The discrepancy arises because of the use of fixed price ratios in the index depicted in column 9, and variable prices in that shown in column IO.

75For price and quantity data see sources to tabs. i and 6; Coclanis, Shadow of a dream, p. I07; and for naval stores see the South Carolina Gazette, April quotations, or the previous or succeeding month when no April quotations are available.

76This method assumes that rice and naval stores experienced the same proportionate price change in the period I7I0-30.

77 Rice prices, I733-74. Indigo prices, I747-74. Naval stores prices, I733-74. Naval stores comprise pitch, tar, and turpentine; the price quoted is an average of the three, weighted according to their relative shares of export volumes.

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