TEH AMERICAN REVOLOOTION

[Valmy]

As opposed to unimportant tons of Caribbean slaves?

To the slave economy of the southern states there was no such thing as unimportant slaves.

[The Minsky Moment]

8) This is a big one for me--the British government in the late 18th/early 19th century were a bunch of overindulged aristocratic douchebags who were not concerned with facilitating rapid economic development on another continent.

At best, that is a big over-exaggeration.  British policy may have been misguided in some respects, but it was not an issue of the British simply being unconcerned with economic development.  What the British tried to do rather crudely was encourage an imperial system of specialization.  So certain American colonial economic activity was dicsouraged, but other activities were not only encouraged by given preferential market access.  For example, the shipbuilding industry in the New England was stimulated by the Navigation Acts, even as the effective non-enforcement of those laws on the American side gave additional opportunities for the colonists to expand their maritime trade further.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

My family were actually Loyalists. I would be the same. Long live the King and his blue turds.

[derspiess]

All fucking monarchists must fucking hang.

Ditto, at least for North America.  Europe should keep/restore all their monarchs, however

Voted Sonz of Libertee

[The Brain]

To all the Loyalists I would like to point out that everything is simple with hindsight. You have to remember that people back then didn't know what we know today.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

To all the Loyalists I would like to point out that everything is simple with hindsight. You have to remember that people back then didn't know what we know today.

No shit Sherlock. Actually I don't think it was simple at the time (unless you were a moron.... my family were gentry/gentlemen farmers so I'm sure they thought about their positions, and fought hard to keep them.)

They're lucky their brains weren't filled with all the crap we know today.

[Oexmelin]

And become a northern Louisiana? No thanx.

Quebec would have imported tons of Carribean slaves?

Actually very few slaves were imported in French Louisiana, and then solely in the 1720s. There is only a single slaving venture in the 1740s. Louisiana's slave population then grew out of natural increase and small groups of dozens of slaves exchanged from Saint Domingue / Haiti.

[Valmy]

Actually very few slaves were imported in French Louisiana, and then solely in the 1720s. There is only a single slaving venture in the 1740s. Louisiana's slave population then grew out of natural increase and small groups of dozens of slaves exchanged from Saint Domingue / Haiti.

My impression was the Slaves in Louisiana came from the fleeing slave owners bringing their slaves over from Haiti during the Haitian revolt.

However I got that bit of information from a show about Voodoo so I accept that may not be entirely accurate. 

[Oexmelin]

No, you are right, many of them came by way of Cuba, btw. That's the second wave of slave immigration, which leads to a historiographical debate about the practices of slavery of Louisiana, whether it was shaped by peculiar practices of New Orleans or by those of (mostly) Cap Français.  This is why it usually comes up in discussions about voodoo, as people are unsure whether that was born in Haiti or if there existed one tradition previously at New Orleans.

The third wave of slave immigration will be the American one, eventually relayed by the inter-state market. 

[alfred russel]

8) This is a big one for me--the British government in the late 18th/early 19th century were a bunch of overindulged aristocratic douchebags who were not concerned with facilitating rapid economic development on another continent.

At best, that is a big over-exaggeration.  British policy may have been misguided in some respects, but it was not an issue of the British simply being unconcerned with economic development.  What the British tried to do rather crudely was encourage an imperial system of specialization.  So certain American colonial economic activity was dicsouraged, but other activities were not only encouraged by given preferential market access.  For example, the shipbuilding industry in the New England was stimulated by the Navigation Acts, even as the effective non-enforcement of those laws on the American side gave additional opportunities for the colonists to expand their maritime trade further.

The laws were significantly biased in favor of the home country.

Eliminate the portions of the navigation acts that favor the UK at the expense of the colonies, abolish the East India Company, and provide the colonies with proportional representation in parliament  and we can begin a discussion of the steps needed to bring about the economic condition under which separation was not necessary.

[The Minsky Moment]

Eliminate the portions of the navigation acts that favor the UK at the expense of the colonies, abolish the East India Company, and provide the colonies with proportional representation in parliament  and we can begin a discussion of the steps needed to bring about the economic condition under which separation was not necessary.

I'm sorry but I lack the authority to do any of those things.

IMO it is anachronistic to look at economic policy in and affecting colonial America from an ideological perspective of Smithian liberalism that only arose at the very end of the period.  The British in the metropole were basing policy based on the settled ideas of their time.  Colonial elites might seek to evade the laws from time to time, but that doesn't mean they didn't share the same beliefs and assumptions.  New England ship builders and naval supply concerns were perfectly happy to operate under the protective umbrella of an imperial system that kept out foreign competition and occasionally paid generous bounties.  Southern sugar producers were very happy to have special access to the lucrative British home market without being undercut by cheaper production from the French, Dutch and Spanish islands.

Another effect of external restrictions on trade was the spur it gave to the development of internal markets and trade among the American colonies.  Britain might restrict grain imports but that just redirected that trade to the domestic market and helped encourage regional specialization and improved transport linkages.   it also encouraged marginal workers to push inland and develop the agricultural hinterland - which could not link up to the international export market anyway, but could serve intra-regional markets within America.

[grumbler]

IMO it is anachronistic to look at economic policy in and affecting colonial America from an ideological perspective of Smithian liberalism that only arose at the very end of the period.  The British in the metropole were basing policy based on the settled ideas of their time. 

Agree, and the settled idea of the time was mercantilism, which included exploiting colonies for the benefit of the mother country.  This was why Virginia blacksmiths, for instance, could repair tools but were forbidden to make them - the British wanted all manufactured goods to come from Britain, while the colonies produced cheap raw materials.

Colonial mercantilism didn't die out with the advent (ironically, in 1776) of Smith's Wealth of Nations.  It persisted right to the end of the imperial era, and was resented continuously for hundreds of years.

[Faeelin]

IMO it is anachronistic to look at economic policy in and affecting colonial America from an ideological perspective of Smithian liberalism that only arose at the very end of the period.  The British in the metropole were basing policy based on the settled ideas of their time. 

Agree, and the settled idea of the time was mercantilism, which included exploiting colonies for the benefit of the mother country.  This was why Virginia blacksmiths, for instance, could repair tools but were forbidden to make them - the British wanted all manufactured goods to come from Britain, while the colonies produced cheap raw materials.

Colonial mercantilism didn't die out with the advent (ironically, in 1776) of Smith's Wealth of Nations.  It persisted right to the end of the imperial era, and was resented continuously for hundreds of years.

Canada and Australia put tariffs on British goods. Why couldn't America?

[Oexmelin]

Agree, and the settled idea of the time was mercantilism, which included exploiting colonies for the benefit of the mother country.  This was why Virginia blacksmiths, for instance, could repair tools but were forbidden to make them - the British wanted all manufactured goods to come from Britain, while the colonies produced cheap raw materials.

That's perhaps a bad example, as usually iron was imported in sheets and later transformed by local blacksmiths. From a commercial point of view, tools were more bulky than iron sheets and of little added value. The later infamous Iron Act was against the industrial manufacture of steel and of such iron sheets. IIRC, it did prohibit new establishment, but did not close existing ones.

«Mercantilist» policies were directed against commercial redistribution (the early-modern economy is mostly one of circulation, hence the Navigation Acts): it did not prevent local manufacture of homespun clothing, for instance. The acts on iron or hats were limited in scope and application. What their effects actually were, in economic term, is debated but is usually recognized to be marginal, as per the weakness of manufactures in the colonies anyway.

[alfred russel]

Eliminate the portions of the navigation acts that favor the UK at the expense of the colonies, abolish the East India Company, and provide the colonies with proportional representation in parliament  and we can begin a discussion of the steps needed to bring about the economic condition under which separation was not necessary.

IMO it is anachronistic to look at economic policy in and affecting colonial America from an ideological perspective of Smithian liberalism that only arose at the very end of the period.  The British in the metropole were basing policy based on the settled ideas of their time.  Colonial elites might seek to evade the laws from time to time, but that doesn't mean they didn't share the same beliefs and assumptions.  New England ship builders and naval supply concerns were perfectly happy to operate under the protective umbrella of an imperial system that kept out foreign competition and occasionally paid generous bounties.  Southern sugar producers were very happy to have special access to the lucrative British home market without being undercut by cheaper production from the French, Dutch and Spanish islands.

Not a very good argument--some people in the colonies were happy to take advantage of some of the benefits available to them, but at the end of the day their overall opinion of british colonialism was expressed through the revolution.