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Economic Regulation and the Colonial Economy: The Maryland Tobacco Inspection Act of 1747

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Mary Mckinney Schweitzer
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Abstract

In 1747 the colony of Maryland enacted a law to improve the general quality of tobacco exports. Tobacco prices rose significantly after the law went into effect, while total tobacco exports continued to increase. The widespread use of tobacco as money, coupled with the exchange of inspection notes for tobacco at inspection sites, led to changes in the Maryland money supply due to the law. Transaction costs fell as a result of marketing all Maryland tobacco through inspection warehouses. The law also appears to have accelerated the trend toward diversification of the economy.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 551 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1980

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References

1 Early accounts of the inspection law of 1747, such as Wyckoff, Vertrees J., Tobacco Regulation in Colonial Maryland (Baltimore, 1936)Google Scholar, were generally descriptive. The only attempt to analyze the effects of the law in depth is Gray's, Lewis C. perceptive article, “The Market Surplus Problems of Colonial Tobacco” in Agricultural History, 2 (01 1928), 1–34Google Scholar. Recently Carville Earle has claimed that the law was harmful to the Maryland economy because it reduced the amount of marketable tobacco; see The Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System (Chicago, 1975)Google Scholar.

2 , Wyckoff, Tobacco Regulation, pp. 51–58, 128, 146Google Scholar; Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (15, 16), vols. 36 and 37 (1727–1732)Google Scholar.

3 Maryland Gazette, July 12, 1753.

4 Menard, Russel R., “Economy and Society in Early Colonial Maryland,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1975, pp. 1–2Google Scholar; also see Appendix to this paper.

5 Klingaman, David, “The Significance of Grain in the Development of the Tobacco Colonies,” this Journal, 29 (06 1969), 268–78Google Scholar; Clemens, Paul G., “From Tobacco to Grain: Economic Development on Maryland's Eastern Shore, 1660–1750,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1974Google Scholar; Prince George's County Estate Inventories 1740–47, DD#1, Maryland Hall of Records MdHR 9794; 1747–58, DD#2, Maryland Hall of Records MdHR 9795.

6 Gray, Lewis C., History-of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1760 (Gloucester, MA, 1958), pp. 37, 253, 318Google Scholar; Price, Jacob M., France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Monopoly, 1674–1791 (Ann Arbor, 1973), pp. 651, 661–2, 667Google Scholar.

7 , Price, France and the Chesapeake, pp. 661–66Google Scholar; Middleton, Arthur P., Tobacco Coast: A History ofthe Chesapeake Bay (Newport News, VA, 1953), p. 109Google Scholar; Tyler, John W., “Foster Cunliffe Sons: Liverpool Merchants in the Maryland Tobacco Trade, 1738–1765,” Maryland Historical Maga zine, 73 (09 1978), 263Google Scholar.

8 Gould, Clarence P., Money and Transportation in Maryland (Baltimore, 1915), p. 58Google Scholar; , Gray, History of Agriculture, pp. 224–5Google Scholar; , Middleton, Tobacco Coast, p. 120Google Scholar; Maryland Gazette, Dec. 9, 1747.

9 Prince George's County Estate Inventories, 1740–47.

10 , Wyckoff, Tobacco Regulation, pp. 51–55, 128, 145–49Google Scholar; Archives of Maryland: Proceedings Acts of the Assembly (15), vol. 36 (1727–1729), p. 226Google Scholar.

11 Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (15–18), vols. 36–39 (1727- Maryland Gazette, 1746–47; Gill, Harold B. Jr, “Cereal Grains in Colonial Virginia” (unpublished report prepared for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Inc., 10 1974), AppendixGoogle Scholar.

12 Maryland Gazette, April 7, 1747. By “Purchase Tobacco” the author meant bulk tobacco for French trade.

13 , Wyckoff, Tobacco Regulation, pp. 165–66Google Scholar; “An Act for amending the Staple of Tobacco, for pre venting Frauds in his Majesty's Customs, and for the Limitation of Officers Fees,” Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (21), vol. 44 (1746–1747)Google Scholar; “An Act for amending the of Tobacco, for preventing Frauds in his Majesty's Customs, and for the Limitation of Officers Fees,” Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (23), vol. 50 (1752–1754)Google Scholar.

14 McCusker, John J., Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775 (Chapel Hill, pp. 116–17Google Scholar; , Gould, Money and Transportation, pp. 82–97Google Scholar; “An Act for amending the Staple of Tobacco,” 1747, 1753.

15 Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (21), vol. 44 (1745–1747)Google Scholar; I am to Dr. Edward Papenfuse of the Maryland Archives for allowing me to use unpublished biographies of Maryland assemblymen currently being compiled at the Hall of Records in Annapolis, Maryland.

16 Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (23), vol. 50 (1752–1754)Google Scholar.

17 Gill, “Cereal Grains,” Appendix.

18 See Appendix in this paper.

19 Jacob Price suggests that the Maryland tobacco trade grew more slowly than Virginia's through the 1700s. “There is evidence that, about 1701–04, Maryland accounted for over 40 percent of British North American output. This had declined to 36.4–37.5 percent by 1758–66 (according to a contemporary estimate), to 32.5 percent by 1768–72, and to only 22 percent by 1773.” I feel, however, that the data are not strong enough to establish any trend in Maryland exports during this period. The most reliable figures come from the 1768–72 series compiled from British customs records by Lawrence Harper, which shows an average of 32.5 percent with no discernible trend. According to Harper, Maryland exports as a percentage of British North American tobacco exports were: 35 percent in 1768, 31 percent in 1769, 30 percent in 1770, 35 percent in 1771, and 32 percent in 1772. The 1758–66 figure of 36.4 to 37.5 percent is from merchants' account books and should be compared with estimates from a similar source. Price's own estimates of Maryland tobacco exports in 1701–02 account for over 40 percent of British North American output, but he also notes that the figure was 35.5 percent in 1703–04. Finally, the estimate of 22 percent in 1773 comes from a contemporary French report on the state of Maryland exports; the figure represents such a sharp drop from the 1772 proportion of 32 percent that I can only conclude the French report is inaccurate. (The proportion of Maryland tobacco in Scottish imports over the period 1729–74 was 22.7 percent, remarkably close to the French estimates. Because most of this tobacco was bound for France, perhaps the French were concerned solely with their own market in making the report.) ( , Price, France and the Chesapeake, p. 668, fns. 71, 74, and 77, p. 1060Google Scholar; U.S. Department of Commerce, Historical Statistics of the United States, Series Z.460–472, p. 1191.)Google Scholar

20 Maryland Gazette, May 19, 1747.

21 Maryland Gazette, May 1, 1753, for example.

22 Maryland Gazette, June 7, 1753, Ibid., 1753.

23 A comparison of estates of different sizes in Prince George's County Estate Inventories in the 1740s shows that estates with crops of less than 2,000 or more than 10,000 pounds of tobacco tended to have a greater percentage of trash tobacco than did medium-sized estates. Since the large estates also included rent from tenants, it is possible that the trash attributed to those estates was actually produced on a smaller plantation. I could not, however, find any evidence for this.

24 Papenfuse, Edward C. Jr, “Planter Behavior and Economic Opportunity in a Staple Economy,” Agricultural History, 46 (04 1972), 305–06Google Scholar.

25 , Tyler, “Foster Cunliffe,” 264Google Scholar; , Price, France and the Chesapeake, p. 668Google Scholar.

26 , Price, France and the Chesapeake, pp. 661–68Google Scholar; Charles County Tobacco Inspection Records, 1748–54, Maryland Hall of Records MdHR 8170, vol. 69; 1755–69, Maryland Hall of Records MdHR 8171, vol. 70; Frederick County Tobacco Inspection Records, 1748–69, Maryland Hall of Records MdHR 6889.

27 Kent County “Proceedings of the Justice under the Law for the Inspection of Tobacco,” 1748–87, Maryland Hall of Records MdHR 8767; Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (21), vol. 44 (1745–1757), p. 547Google Scholar; Prince George's County Estate Inventories.

28 Prince George's County Estate Inventories; see footnote 5.

29 “An Act for amending the Staple of Tobacco,” 1747.

30 Archives of Maryland: Proceedings and Acts of the Assembly (22), vol. 46 (1748–1751), pp. 50–1Google Scholar.

31 Maryland Gazette, May 19, 1747.

32 Maryland Gazette, April 5, 1753.

33 Maryland Gazette, July 12, 1753.

34 , McCusker, Money and Exchange, p. 192Google Scholar.

35 Maryland Gazette, December 9, 1747.

36 Shepherd, James F. and Walton, Gary M., Shipping, Maritime Trade, and the Economic Development of Colonial North America (Cambridge, 1972), p. 87Google Scholar.

37 In this particular case, weather is probably responsible for many of the short-term variations in prices and quantities, with planters over-reacting to high prices following a bad harvest by planting too much tobacco the following year, forcing prices down. These year-to-year variations probably say something about the elasticity of substitution for producers, but here we are interested in long-run shifts in production and revenue.

38 Historical Statistics, pp. 765–66.

39 , Shepherd and , Walton, Shipping, Maritime Trade, pp. 177–9Google Scholar.

40 I am indebted to Lois Green Carr of the St. Mary's City Commission for her assistance in the use of these price series. The Talbot County price series was compiled by Paul Clemens and used with his permission. The Somerset County price series was supplied by the St. Mary's City Commission. The Prince George's-Anne Arundel Counties price series is published in , Earle, The Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System, pp. 228–29Google Scholar. Conversion rates from Maryland current money to British sterling can be found in , McCusker, Money and Exchange, pp. 117–20Google Scholar.