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Food Surpluses and Deficits in the American Colonies, 1768–1772

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

David Klingaman
David Klingaman
Affiliation:
Ohio University
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Extract

Scholars are gradually piecing together the puzzle of the economic development of the American colonies through quantitative studies designed to clarify and measure economic variables having theoretical relevance for the wider process of economic growth and development. Recently, researchers such as Jones, Land, Shepherd, Walton, and Thomas have been helping others to build a base that one day may permit the writing of a comprehensive study of the process of early American economic development which may even include reliable estimates of economic growth and living standards. The data problems for the colonial period of American economic history are severe, and much of the research has tended to concentrate on the important role of international trade, where the extant data sources are capable of yielding rich lodes of quantitative information. Customs 16/1, entitled the Ledger of Imports and Exports for America, 1768–1772, has been the most valuable source of trade data, since it is the only comprehensive document which shows the trade of the American colonies with all parts of the world and not just with the British Isles. Still yet to be mined are the rich sources of data buried in the naval office lists for the various colonies. These sources also give the trade of each colony with all parts of the world although they are more tedious to work with than the better collated Customs 16/1.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 1971 , pp. 553 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

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References

1 Jones, Alice Hanson, “Wealth Estimates for the American Middle Colonies, 1774,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, XVIII, No. 4, Part II (July 1970).Google Scholar

2 Land, Aubrey C., “Economic Base and Social Structure: The Northern Chesapeake in the Eighteenth Century,” The Journal Of Economic History, XXV (Dec. 1965), pp. 639–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Land, “Economic Behavior in a Planting Society: The Eighteenth Century Chesapeake,” Journal of Southern History, XXXIII (Nov. 1967), pp. 469–85.Google Scholar

3 Shepherd, James F. and Walton, Gary M., “Estimates of ‘Invisible’ Earnings in the Balance of Payments of the British North American Colonies, 1768–1772,” The Journal Of Economic History, XXIX (June 1969), pp. 230–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarShepherd, James F., “Commodity Exports From the British North American Colonies to Overseas Areas, 1768–1772: Magnitudes and Patterns of Trade,” Explorations in Economic History, VIII (Fall, 1970), 5–76.Google Scholar

4 Walton, Gary M., “New Evidence on Colonial Commerce,” The Journal Of Economic History, XXVIII (Sept. 1968), pp. 363–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Shepherd and Walton, “Estimates of ‘Invisible’ Earnings in the Balance of Payments,” pp. 230–63.

5 Thomas, Robert Paul, “A Quantitative Approach to the Study of the Effects of British Imperial Policy Upon Colonial Welfare,” The Journal Of Economic History, XXV (Dec. 1965), pp. 615–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Public Record Office, London, Customs 16/1.

7 Under the head of Board of Trade Papers in the Colonial Office Catalog, Public Record Office, London, the Naval Office Lists cover the trade of the following colonies for the years given: Carolina, 1716–1719, 1721–1735, 1736–1767; Georgia, 1752–1767; Maryland, 1689–1702, 1751–1765; Massachusetts, 1752–1765; New England, 1686–1717; New Hampshire, 1723–1769; New Jersey, 1722–1764; New York, 1713–1765; Virginia, 1697–1706, 1725–1769.

8 Shepherd, “Community Exports,” p. 65.

9 Taylor, George Rogers, “American Economic Growth Before 1840: An Exploratory Essay,” The Journal Of Economic History, XXIV (Dec. 1964), pp. 427–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Schumacher, Max George, “The Northern Farmer and his Markets During the Late Colonial Period,” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, 1948).Google Scholar

11 Cole, Arthur H., Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700–1861 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), Statistical Supplement, pp. 57–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 As monthly commodity data were not available, the calculation of a weighted annual average price was not possible.

13 Cole, Statistical Supplement, p. ix.

14 Klingaman, David, “The Significance of Grain in the Development of the Tobacco Colonies,” The Journal of Economic History, XXIX (June 1969), pp. 268–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Schumacher, p. 158.

16 See Shepherd and Walton, p. 258.

17 The per capita flour consumption figure is near that used by Towne and Rasmussen for the 1800–30 period in their study of gross farm product in the nineteenth century. Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in Income and Wealth, NBER, XXIV (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), 294.Google Scholar They estimate 4.3 bushels of wheat per capita. Two cwt. of flour (224 lbs.) would convert to about 4.9 bushels of wheat per capita. This is based on 41/2% bushels of wheat being equivalent to 196 pounds of flour. Percy W. Bidwell and John I. Falconer, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620–1860 (New York: Peter Smith), p. 498. Applying estimates of per capita corn consumption to the colonial period is even more hazardous. Towne ana Rasmussen estimate human per capita corn consumption in 1800–1840 at 4.4 bushels yearly. See p. 297 of their article. In 1839 average per capita consumption of corn by both humans and animals was approximately 22 bushels. See Exports Domestic and Foreign, 1697 to 1789 Inclusive, 48th Cong., 1st sess., House Misc. Doc. 49, Part 2 (Washington, D. C, 1884), p. 21; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington, D. C., 1960), p. 297.Google Scholar It has also been estimated that slaves in Virginia not fed animal food consumed 15 bushels of corn annually. Rowland, Kate Mason, “Merchants and Mills,” William and Mary Quarterly, 1st Ser., XI (Jan. 1903), 245–46.Google Scholar It seems unlikely that the practice of feeding corn to animals was as important in 1768–72 as it was in the first half of the nineteenth century when the ratio of total corn consumption to human corn consumption was roughly 5:1. If this ratio were only one-half as large in 1768–72, total per capita corn consumption could have been 11 bushels annually. This figure would be too low if human corn consumption were greater in 1768–72 than in the later period. Corn was an important food crop in the colonial period, especially in the South among the numerous small planters and slaves.

With respect to beef and pork, Robert E. Gallman adjusted the Towne and Rasmusson figures of per capita production of pork, beef, and veal and concluded that it was about 230 pounds in 1860. This means that per capita consumption must have been less than 230 pounds per capita. Gallman, Robert E., “Self-Sufficiency in the Cotton Economy of the Antebellum South,” Agricultural History, XLIV (Jan. 1970), 18.Google Scholar Kohlmeier assumed that in 1850 in southern Illinois and Indiana the per capita consumption of hogs was one per person. Kohlmeier, A. L., The Old Northwest (Bloomington, Ind.: The Principia Press, Inc., 1938), p. 95.Google Scholar The slaughter weight of hogs was probably about 140 to 150 pounds at this time. See Gallman, “Self-Sufficiency in the Cotton Economy,” pp. 14–15. James T. Lemon estimated that in the agricultural area of southeastern Pennsylvania in 1740–90 the per capita beef and pork consumption was 150 pounds. Lemon, James T., “Household Consumption in Eighteenth-Century America and Its Relationship to Production and Trade: The Situation Among Farmers In Southeastern Pennsylvania,” Agricultural History, XLI (Jan. 1967), 61.Google Scholar If the per capita beef and pork consumption were 224 pounds instead of the assumed 150 pounds, the aggregate colony percentage basic surplus would be 10.8 percent instead of 12.3 percent. The percentage basic surpluses and deficits are not very sensitive to errors in the estimated per capita quantities of the basic consumption requirements of grains and meat. They are, nowever, sensitive to errors in the per capita value of the basic surplus or deficit. Yet these are based on the net export, population, and the price data employed—all of which are probably as reliable as can be obtained. Manifestly, the per capita grain and meat consumption figures employed are at best a crude approximation to the correct ones. For estimates of colonial food consumption requirements which may be somewhat higher than those employed in this study, the reader should see Table Z, pp. 388–405 in Historical Statistics. Unfinished research by Lawrence A. Harper and Mrs. Marga Stone should eventually produce more accurate estimates of early American dietary standards.

18 The First Census of the United States has the white male population under 16 years of age as about 25 percent of the total population in 1790. See p. 8. If there were as many females as males and assuming the slave age distribution was the same as the white population, this would put half the population under 16 years of age.

19 Presumably older children consumed at a higher rate than half the adult ration whereas the more numerous younger children ate less than half the adult requirements. This procedure is employed by Gallman, “Self-Sufficiency in the Cotton Economy,” p. 18. Gallman assigned half the meat ration for field hands to slaves under 15.

20 The figure of £2.625 was obtained as follows: 2 cwt. of flour at 20.4 shillings plus 11 bushels of corn at 21.34 shillings plus 150 lbs. of beef and pork at 26.7 shillings totals to 68.44 shillings or £3.42. Round this to £31/2 to obtain the adult requirement value. This reduces to £2.625 when children are accounted for as consumers at one-half the adult rate.

21 The fact that wholesale prices are used in calculating the £.2.625 figure is not a source of error, since the surplus and deficit value (the numerator) is also in wholesale prices. However, the use of Philadelphia prices in employing the £.2.625 figure for all regions of the colonies is a source of error since the surplus and deficit values are in regional prices. Alternative calculations show that this procedure does not affect the results by much. The main impact is to lower the percentage value of the New England deficit by approximately 15 percent.

22 Taylor, “American Economic Growth Before 1840,” p. 437. This scholar has speculated that between 1710 and 1775 the average annual rate of increase of real per capita income in the American colonies was slightly more than 1 percent per annum.

23 Hart, Albert Bushnell, Commonwealth History of Massachusetts, II (New York: The State History Co., 1928), p. 391.Google Scholar

24 See Table 1.

25 David C. Klingaman, “The Coastwise Trade of Colonial Massachusetts,” Research Paper No. 51, Dept. of Economics, Ohio University. The study is based primarily on the Massachusetts Naval Office lists, which end in the year 1765.

26 These same relative price relationships also prevailed in the 1768–72 period although the price differentials in beef and pork between the lower South and the middle colonies appear to have narrowed appreciably. Any relative movement of colony exchange rates between 1761–65 and 1768–72 is not clear, hence the price comparisons among colonies is speculative.

27 Several economists have conjectured about this question. Raymond W. Goldsmith, “Historical and Comparative Rates of Production, Productivity and Prices,” Hearings before the Joint Economic Committee, 65th Cong., 1st Sess., Part 2, 1959, pp. 277–78. This is reprinted in Andreano, Ralph, ed., New Views on American Economic Development (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Co., Inc., 1965).Google Scholar Also see p. 50 for Andreano's own remarks on the subject of growth rates. G. R. Taylor, “American Economic Growth Before 1840,” pp. 427–37. Fishlow, Albert, discussion of G. C. Bjork's article, The Journal Of Economic History, XXIV (Dec. 1964), 566.Google Scholar

28 United Nations, Yearbook of National Accounts Statistics, 1965 (New York: U. N., 1966), pp. 482–83.Google Scholar Part D, Table No. 6, contains personal and percentage disposable income data. Scattered through pp. 3–423 in Part C are the country food consumption figures. The years used for Korea, Ecuador, Jamaica, and Panama were 1953, 1958, 1960, and 1964. For Honduras the years used were 1953, 1958, 1960, and 1963. In the case of Jordan it was 1959, 1960, and 1963. The percentage of disposable income spent on food was obtained for each country by averaging the data for the years. Then a simple six-country average was calculated.

29 United Nations, Compendium of Social Statistics: 1967 (New York: U. N., 1968), pp. 245, 247.Google Scholar This gives data for American rural farm population in 1955, Japanese farm population in 1951–52, and French farm households in 1956. Compendium of Social Statistics: 1963 (New York: U. N., 1963), pp. 201–02.Google Scholar This covers the Italian Central-North and South in 1953, Norway in 1954, and Yugoslavia in 1955.

30 Bureau, Labor, Indian Labor Statistics, 1968 (Delhi: Government of India Press, 1968), p. 148.Google Scholar

31 Jones, p. 128, computed from Table 51.