|
|
![Economic Cycles](images/economic_cycles.gif) |
1776-83
Revolutionary War boom
1784-88
Postwar depression and deflation; maritime
commerce prosperity
|
|
![Farm Economy](images/farm_economy.gif) |
17th century
Farmers near water transportation grow some cash crops for trade;
farmers inland emphasize subsistence farming
18th century
Northern farmers produce a variety of crops and livestock, sometimes
supplemented by craftwork; Southern plantation agriculture concentrates
on export crops.
1776
Declaration of Independence results partly from British controls on
farm exports, restrictions on land titles, and limitations on western
settlement
1786
Shay's Rebellion, a farmers' revolt against deflation
1791 First National Bank chartered
|
|
![Farmers & the Land](images/farmers_land.gif) |
17th century
Small land grants commonly made to individual settlers; large tracts
often granted to well-connected colonists
1607
First permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia
1619
First African slaves brought to Virginia; by 1700, slaves are displacing
southern indentured servants
18th century
English farmers settle in New England villages; Dutch, German, Swedish,
Scotch-Irish, and English farmers settle on isolated Middle Colony
farmsteads; English and some French farmers settle on plantations
in tidewater and on isolated Southern Colony Farmsteads in Piedmont;
Spanish immigrants, mostly lower middle-class and indentured servants,
settle the Southwest and California.
1776
Continental Congress offers land grants for service in the Continental
Army
1785, 1787
Ordinances of 1785 and 1787 provide for survey, sale, and government
of northwestern lands
1790
Total
population: 3,929,214; farmers 90% of labor force; U.S. area
settled extends westward on average of 255 miles; parts of the frontier
cross the Appalachians
1796
Public Land Act authorizes Federal land sales to the public in minimum
640-acre plots at $2 per acre of credit.
|
|
![Farm Machinery and Technology](images/farm_tech.gif) |
18th
century
Oxen and horses for power, crude wooden plows, all sowing by hand,
cultivating by hoe, hay and grain cutting with sickle, and threshing
with flail
1790s
Cradle and scythe introduced; invention of cotton gin (1793); Thomas
Jefferson's plow with moldboard of least resistance tested (1794)
1797
Charles Newbold patents first cast-iron plow
|
|
![Crops & Livestock](images/crops_livestock.gif) |
17th and 18th centuries
All forms of domestic livestock, except turkeys, are imported at some
time; crops borrowed from Indians include maize, sweet potatoes, tomatoes,
pumpkins, gourds, squashes, watermelons, beans, grapes, berries, pecans,
black walnuts, peanuts, maple sugar, tobacco, and cotton
17th
and 18th centuries
New crops from Europe include clover, alfalfa, timothy, small grains,
and fruits and vegetables; African slaves introduce grain and sweet
sorghum, melons, okra, and peanuts
18th century
Tobacco is the chief cash crop of the South
1793
First Merino sheep imported
1795-1815
Sheep industry greatly emphasized in New England
|
|
![Transportation](images/transportation.gif) |
18th century
Transportation by water, on trails, or through wilderness
1794
Lancaster Turnpike opened, first successful toll road
|
|
![Agricultural Trade and Development](images/ag_trade.gif) |
17th century
Tobacco is the first important American export
18th century
Colonies export tobacco, rice, indigo, grain, and meat products
1789
First tariff act, for revenue only
1789-1860
The tariff is a perennial subject of contention between the agricultural
interests of the South and West and the commercial interests of the
North
1790
Value of tobacco exports:
$4.36 million or 44% of total exports
|
|
![Life on the Farm](images/life_farm.gif) |
17th century
Farmers endure rough pioneer life while adapting to new environment
18th century
Ideas of progress, human perfectibility, rationality, and scientific
improvement flourish in the New World; small family farms predominate,
except for plantations in southern coastal areas; housing ranges from
crude log cabins to substantial frame, brick, or stone houses; farm
families manufacture many necessities
|
|
![Farm Organizations & Movements](images/farm_org.gif) |
18th century
Civic and intellectual leaders in colonial and revolutionary America
copy the aristocratic and fashionable Europe interest in agriculture,
science, and commerce, and form societies to promote these interests
1785
The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and other
rural concerns are organized
1794
Whiskey Rebellion, a farmers' revolt against taxes on grain in whiskey
|
|
![Agricultural Education & Extension](images/ag_edu.gif) |
1647
Massachusetts Bay Colony requires elementary school in towns of at
least 50 families and Latin school in towns of at least 100 families
18th century
Essay upon Field Husbandry written by Jared Eliot of Connecticut
1785
Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia contains one of
the finest detailed descriptions of agriculture in an American State
and asserts the virtues of rural life
|
|
![Government Programs & Policy](images/gov.gif) |
18th century
Local governments often regulate the prices of basic foodstuffs
1799
George Washington suggests to Congress the establishment of a National
Board of Agriculture
|
|
|
Next Decade >> |
|
![Agriculturel Images](images/image_green.jpg) |
![](images/img07.gif) |
|