Great Issues in American History, Volume I by Richard Hofstadter

Author:Richard Hofstadter [Steeg, Clarence L. Ver]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-80969-8
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

DOCUMENT 13

THE SECRETARY OF VIRGINIA REPORTS ON SELF-REGULATION WITHOUT BENEFIT OF LEGISLATION, 8 MAY

1682

Colonial regulation of economic activity was exercised by each colonial government. Wages and prices, for example, were regulated in seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay by the General Court. Internal economic regulation did not often develop into a political issue over an extended period of time. Land laws in each colony were usually formulated by the ruling group which displayed just enough generosity in land distribution to avoid an open contest between the landed and the landless, the latter being relatively few in number.

Tobacco regulation, however, was a persistent political issue in Virginia because first, tobacco remained the principal money crop for a hundred years; second, the problems that arose in marketing tobacco were such that there was seldom universal agreement on the most effective legislation to establish proper marketing practices and to raise prices; and third, the regulation of tobacco affected the small and large planters alike.

In the following document, the secretary of the colony of Virginia reports to the Lords of Trade. Tobacco prices were so low that some planters favored using force to reduce production to obtain what they considered justice for their cause, higher prices for tobacco.

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