o and towards corn, wheat, indigo, et cetera; (3) a larger utilization by the colonists of basic raw materials, including timber, ore deposits and grazing rights; (4) raising greater numbers of stock to produce both meat and textile by-products; (5) a very substantial increase in manufacturing (particularly shipbuilding, textiles and iron products); and (6) a rapid expansion of trade with regions other than England, especially Africa and the foreign West Indies (Jernegan, 1959, p. 357).
At the same time, large tracts of land were being accumulated by a few wealthy men, a growing scarcity of good unoccupied land in the Tidewater region caused a rapid rise in land values and poor agricultural methods led to soil depletion and so drops in crop productivity. These three factors stimulated westward movement of the population and the settlement of cheaper and poorer lands, mostly by newer immigrants. The result of the combination of these factors was to increase sectarian regional discord in the colonies as well as to increase the resentment on the part of these poorer, westward-bound Americans of taxes levied by Parliament. (Although it should be noted that it was the wealthiest American landowners and merchants who most vocally and probably most successfully resisted paying their taxes รป proving again that there is very little new under the sun.) These factors did not affect the economic relationship between England and the American colonies as substantially as those six listed in the preceding paragraph, but they did contribute to the overall worsening of the relationship between England and America (Jernegan, 1959, pp. 356-58).
Each of the six economic factors affecting the relationship between England and the colonies cited by Jernegan shall be discussed in further detail here, relying on primary documents when possible.
The increasing use of slaves was based in a number of factors from the growing size of plantations to the de...