Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Planting, Profits, People, and Politics in Bladensburg, Maryland - 1814


               In 1806, The New and Complete American Encyclopedia describes Bladensburg as " a post town of Maryland in Prince George's county on the E[ast] side of the branch of Potomac at the junction of the N[orth] W[est]and N[orth] E[ast] branches about seven miles above Washington city consists of one long street on which are erected about 160 dwellings and a warehouse for the inspection of tobacco It is 38 miles S[outh] W[est by S[outh] of Baltimore, 8 [miles] E[east by N[orth] Georgetown, and 140 S[outh] W[est] by W[est] of Philadelphia [at a] Long[itude of] I 57 W[est] Lat[titude of] 38 57 N[orth]. (The New and Complete American Encyclopedia, 1806)[1]

               Bladensburg was the commercial center for the primary source of income, tobacco cultivation, in the northwestern part of Prince George's County, Maryland, lying just outside and east of the border of the District of Columbia. Tobacco production was serviced by convenient access to the Potomac River through its tributaries and by a growing system of roads linking the American South with coastal cities along the way to New England in the north.

               Agriculture and horticulture produced income and wealth that supported adjunct businesses such as seed and farm supply companies, shipping and brokerages, retailers of consumer goods and secondary value added enterprises such as mills. Social structures and politics in 1814 Bladensburg supported lawyers, doctors, and teachers. The complexities of tobacco cultivation consumed everyone's attention and time, and in turn dictated the annual cycles of political, religious, business and social seasons (Bozman, 1837; Morgan & Culture, 1998; Morse & Webber, 1802)[2]

               And at its core, commerce in Bladensburg depended on the institution of slavery (Morgan & Culture, 1998). This does not mean that everyone owned slaves, but it does mean that many benefited from the wealth accrued by the work of slaves. While not all tobacco planters had the capital to acquire slaves, the large planters who did had become dependent on the institution of legalized bondage. The small return on investment that tobacco cultivation provided made tobacco a risky  business choice for small planters and often resulted in foreclosures in poor growing seasons and global market swings. This risk resulted in small farmers turning to farming, to growing small grains such as wheat, an alternative business leaving slave agricultural production to large wealthy land owners.

               The need for both planters and farmers to access capital to purchase agricultural supplies and to buy more acreage resulted in a key political crisis in early 19th century Maryland over the role of banks, monetary regulation, and the power of a central government and its relation to transportation infrastructure projects such as turnpikes and canals. The division of the body politic into two partisan camps pitted small government supporters to oppose the 1811 renewal of the First Bank of the United States in support of Jefferson's ideas of a yeoman republic unconstrained by urban banking control. [3]

               Businesses centered on trade and commerce in Bladensburg as in other commercial centers tended more to the Hamiltonian concept of a level playing field with access to commercial loan instruments, and under the Federalist banner sought to fight of the ideas of the Democratic-Republican Party. This political fight pitted Bladensburg against the rest of the county for much of the first 25 years from 1788 until 1814, and reflected much of the political debate in the Chesapeake and Mid Atlantic.

               The war with Great Britain was ardently supported by proponents of small government, the very same supporters who had successfully prevented a renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States charter would soon prove the Federalist's point as the country was driven into debt in large part due to the military buildup and costs of the war itself. Bladensburg paid a high price for being on the losing side of the national political debate as well as the management of the war that many residents did not support (Buchholz, 1908; Riley, 1906)[4]

References
Bozman, J. L. (1837). The history of Maryland: from its first settlement, in 1633, to the restoration, in 1660 ; with a copious introduction, and notes and illustrations. J. Lucas & E.K. Deaver.  

Buchholz, H. E. (1908). Governors of Maryland: from the revolution to the year 1908. Williams & Wilkins company.

Morgan, P. D., & Culture, O. I. of E. A. H. and. (1998). Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-century Chesapeake and Lowcountry. University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.

Morse, J., & Webber, S. (1802). The American Universal Geography: Or, A View of the Present State of All the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the Known World, and of the United States in Particular. In Two Parts ... Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews; sold at their bookstore; by said Thomas in Worcester; by Thomas, Andrews & Butler in Baltimore, and by other booksellers.

Riley, E. S. (1906). A history of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1635-1904. Baltimore: Nunn & Co.
The New and Complete American Encyclopedia. (1806). (Vol. II). New York: John Low.


By John Peter Thompson May 21, 2013




[1] The New and Complete American Encyclopedia. (1806). (Vol. II). New York, NY USA: John Low.
   p. 121.

[2] Morse, J., & Webber, S. (1802). The American Universal Geography: Or, A View of the Present State of All the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the Known World, and of the United States in Particular. In Two Parts ... Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews; sold at their bookstore; by said Thomas in Worcester; by Thomas, Andrews & Butler in Baltimore, and by other booksellers. p. 582.

" The soil of the good land in Maryland is of such a nature and quality as to produce from 12 to t6 bushels of wheat or from 20 to 30 bushels of Indian corn per acre. Ten bushels of wheat and if bushels of corn per acre may be the annual average crops in the state at large... Wheat and tobacco arc the staple commodities. Tobacco is generally cultivated in sets by negroes in the following manner: the feed is sown in beds of fine mould and transplanted the begin of May... That pride which grows on slavery and is habitual to those who from their infancy are taught to believe and to see their superiority is a visible characteristic of the inhabitants of Maryland. But with this characteristic we must not fail to connect that of hospitality to strangers which is equally universal and obvious Many of the women possess all the amiable and many of the elegant accomplishments of their sex "
  
[3] A History Of Central Banking In The United States. 2012 The Federal Reserve Bank of Minnepaolis. [accessed May, 2013].http://www.minneapolisfed.org/community_education/student/centralbankhistory/bank.cfm?

" Though the intent of the Bank was to facilitate government finances, Hamilton had another goal in mind—to function as a commercial bank. At the time of the revolution, there were barely any banks in the colonies; Britain had used its authority to protect its own banks and prevent the development of financial rivals. Hamilton's vision was to create a central source of capital that could be lent to new businesses and thereby develop the nation's economy. So while in some ways the First Bank prefigured the Federal Reserve, it also differed from it significantly by offering commercial loans, which the Fed, along with most modern central banks, does not do."

[4] Buchholz, H. E. (1908). Governors of Maryland: from the revolution to the year 1908. Williams & Wilkins company. 
" The national administration in 1812 was republican Maryland however was in a rather uncertain mind the republicans and federalists being almost equally strong... Both the Maryland federalists who had opposed the war and the Maryland republicans who had advocated it were forced to bear the burden of the nation's war as far as Maryland was concerned without any aid from the central government."

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