Wealth Holdings in the Colonies

Additional evidence, based on probated wealth holdings of deceased colonists, also portrays slow and irregular growth rates much less than 1 percent throughout the period from 1630 to 1775. Per capita wealth included land, buildings, physical possessions, money, debts receivable minus debts owed, and, often, slaves and indentured contracts. AHan Kulikoff’s (1979) analysis of wealth holdings in Maryland over the eighteenth century suggests a long-run trend rate of growth of 0.4 percent per year.25 His evidence shows contrasting periods: a slight fall in the first quarter of the century, a sharper decline in the second, and a very strong advance in the third quarter. Recalling the strong productivity growth period of 1630-1670 in the tobacco colonies, with little or no change in the late seventeenth century, it appears that most of the growth bracketed a long period of no growth (or possibly some decline) in per capita well-being in the Upper South. Work by Terry Anderson (1975, 1979) on New England also shows very strong advances in wealth holdings per person from 1650 to 1680, and then very little growth up to 1710. The trend from 1650 to 1710 was unusually high, perhaps 1.6 percent per year.

Evidence provided by Gloria and Jackson Main (1988) on southern New England between 1640 and 1774 is shown in Table 5.2. This evidence of growth in total wealth per male indicates a trend in yearly average income advance of 0.35 percent in this region. Note, however, the spurt following the 1638-1654 period, relative stagnation until the turn of the century, then another 20-year spurt followed by another 20-year flat period, and finally yet another rapid spurt.

Note: For estates of males only; weighted for age and area. Estates from 1755 to 1764 are not included due to incomplete sample for area weighting. Source: Adapted from Main and Main 1988, 27-46.

That regions differed greatly in the timing of their growth phases. Over a very long period, however, the trend growth rates of regions were probably fairly similar.

It seems reasonable to conclude that over the last 100-150 years of the colonial period, the growth rate trend was slightly below 0.5 percent per year. Based on evidence of wealth gathered from samples of probated estates for all the colonial regions, Alice Hanson Jones concludes that

[d]espite possible local or regional spurts or lags or even declines in some subperiods after 1650, it seems likely that, for all regions combined, fairly steady intensive growth accompanied accumulating experience in the New World, learning by doing, increasing knowhow in shipping within the Atlantic community, and the enlargement in size of the market that came with growth of population and trade. (Jones 1980, 305)

By her calculations, Jones suggests growth rates for three distinct periods: 0.3 percent, 1650-1725; 0.4 percent, 1725-1750; and 0.5 percent, 1750-1775 (1980, 78). Although the acceleration of growth implied by her figures may be challenged, the range seems reasonable in light of the improvements we have already noted and in light of England’s estimated annual economic growth rate of 0.3 percent throughout most of the eighteenth century (Deane and Cole 1964).