Colonial economic systems: The Backcountry
Colonial economic systems: Mercantilism
Colonial economic systems: Southern Agriculture
Colonial economic systems: Northern Agriculture
Colonial economic systems: Commerce
Colonial economic systems: Spanish Territories
Colonial economic systems: New France
Colonial economic systems: New Netherland and New Sweden
Settlers in the backcountry, areas that lay beyond the core settlements of the mainland colonies and whose geographic position made marketing their products difficult, developed unique economic systems and living patterns. During the late nineteenth century, these regions would be praised as the great American frontier, where the true American character developed. In the eighteenth century, such areas were despised, reputed to be populated by uncouth, uncivilized people whose lifestyle and farming practices were equally slovenly.
The backcountry economy appeared in Virginia when settlement moved past the river systems that eased marketing of tobacco. It characterized parts of North Carolina between tobacco and rice areas, and appeared in every colony as settlement spread inland. The reactions of English and colonial travelers to this lifestyle were almost universally negative. They viewed the people as crude and uncultured, unable to recognize the superiority of their visitors, and the farming practices as ugly and wasteful, demonstrating willful ignorance of proper agriculture.
Farming methods in the hinterland were indeed untidy and wasteful, but also rational in an area where land was abundant and cheap, labor was scarce, and family survival depended on the work of husband and wife. The labor-saving method of turning forest into cropland was to girdle trees and plant corn (which unlike wheat did not require plowed fields) between the trees to feed the family. After the trees died, they were cut down and burned. Grain and tobacco were useless crops when the cost of carriage exceeded market value. However, cows and pigs could forage for themselves in the forest and be driven to distant markets on their own legs, where they often arrived weak and emaciated, further evidence of incompetent farming practices in the backcountry.
Forest products were an important part of colonial economic systems both north and south, especially, but not only, in backcountry areas. England had been largely deforested before 1600 and depended on importing timber and naval stores from Baltic countries for its navy and shipbuilders. America provided an alternate source of supplies, and England offered bounties when the colonists developed the techniques needed to produce satisfactory pitch, tar, and turpentine, vital in protecting wood and rope from corrosion by salt water. Tall New England white pines made ideal masts for Britain’s Royal Navy, and the sap of southern long-leaf pines proved the best source of pitch and turpentine. Artisans learned to make barrel staves and heads needed to transport tobacco from the Chesapeake region and sugar from theWest Indies, also a major market for construction timber. Trial and error led to the discovery that wood ash from the hardwood forests of New York and New England was best for making potash, the most important industrial chemical of the eighteenth century, used in producing glass, soap, drugs, and dyes.
