Building the Bay Colony: Local Economy and Culture in Early Massachusetts (review)

Why did New England, the only English colonial region lacking a staple crop, not only survive but prosper in the seventeenth century? And, given its productive limitations, how could New England eventually become such an important participant in the transatlantic commerce that fueled the rise of the first British Empire? These questions lie at the heart of James McWilliams’s brief and engaging study of the early Massachusetts economy.

McWilliams argues that by focusing their narratives on external trade as the engine of economic growth and on a rising merchant class as the key actors in the process, historians have underestimated the significance of internal economic development in generating prosperity in the Bay Colony. Before trade of any kind could take place, colonial farmers had to familiarize themselves with available resources and the local terrain, carve out spaces for crops and livestock husbandry, and construct roads and bridges to connect their fledgling communities. Accomplishing these tasks often meant reserving such items as timber and fish for domestic consumption, forgoing the profits that might be made from their export. Relying on a combination of public and private initiatives, colonists thereby managed to weather the depression of the 1640s, caused by the virtual cessation of immigration, and gradually attain a comfortable level of economic security within two decades of their arrival.

Beginning in the 1650s, with a solid foundation of mixed farming in place, further economic diversification and expansion of trade networks became possible. However, McWilliams contends that even at this point the domestic economy retained its primacy. Initial forays into manufacturing, such as the short-lived Lynn ironworks, relied on local supplies of provisions, wood, and labor. Surviving account books for the period reveal that many merchants–even if they ventured into transatlantic trade–remained enmeshed in their localities. The cargoes they sent to England or the Caribbean included corn and wheat, barrel staves, and fish gathered from local producers; the imported goods they sold were more often paid for in butter, homespun, shoes, or labor than in cash. Complex financial arrangements, including cash discounts, interest charges, long-term credit, and payments through third parties, structured the internal as well as external economy. Modest opportunities for market production encouraged farmers further to improve the transportation infrastructure that facilitated trade of all kinds.

In sum, McWilliams rejects what he calls the prevailing “declensionist” model that depicts a bifurcated Bay Colony economy with dynamic commercial capitalism overshadowing stagnant subsistence agriculture. He emphasizes instead that external and internal economic development worked in tandem: a thriving domestic sector made possible the more ambitious transatlantic ventures that have captured a disproportionate share of attention. Building the Bay Colony thus complements the work of Daniel Vickers and Brian Donahue in helping to explain how, even without a staple crop, farmers in a region that the Puritan general Oliver Cromwell dismissed as “poor, cold, and useless” not only prospered locally but also contributed to the expansion of imperial economic ties.

Yet McWilliams’s tightly localist focus, and his tendency to adopt the perspective of what he frequently describes as “traditional” New England farmers, produce some glaring omissions. The most significant of these is the virtual absence of Indians from the story. However much work they had to do, colonial farmers did not start from scratch. Colonists may have reshaped the landscape to suit their needs, but the landscape already bore the imprint of centuries of human use. The English located their towns on cleared Native lands of proven agricultural potential, at a tremendous savings in labor. They bought, sold, bartered, and ate corn–a crop introduced to them by Native farmers. Bay colonists often built their roads along the routes of Indian footpaths, and located ferries and weirs where Indians had forded and fished. They harvested timber from woods made more accessible by the Native practice of regularly burning the undergrowth. And, at least for a while, colonists used wampum as a medium of exchange in their cash-short...