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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