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Riches, Real Estate, and Resistance
How Land Speculation, Debt, and Trade Monopolies Led to the American Revolution
Thomas D. Curtis (Author)
9781118973929, Wiley
Hardback, published 27 August 2014
187 pages
23.1 x 15.5 x 1.3 cm, 0.363 kg
Was the American Revolution fought to achieve abstract ideals of individual freedom or to serve economic interests? "Both!" is the answer provided by Prof. Thomas D. Curtis in this intriguing study. He shows how British policy, particularly as it related to the speculation in lands on the western frontier (in the Appalachias and the Ohio Valley), had the unintended effect of uniting diverse interests into a force for rebellion. The leaders included heavily indebted southern landowners (including George Washington), northern urban land speculators (including Benjamin Franklin), and wealthy northern merchants who feared, after 1773, that England would impose trade monopolies that would bankrupt them. Artisans, shopkeepers, and small-scale farmers were influenced by combinations of economic and ideological motives. Small-scale land-oriented interests consisted of the settlers who wanted cheap land for farming in the western frontier areas, but who were denied legal title to the Indian lands by British law.
Editor’s Introduction: Updating the Curtis Thesis 1 Riches, Real Estate, and Resistance: How Land Speculation, Debt, and Trade Monopolies Led to the American Revolution — Thomas D. 30 Introduction 31 Chapter I. The Economic and Political Background 33 Chapter II. Economic Interest Groups and Western Land Speculation 54 Chapter III. England’s Colonial Land Policies, 1763 – 1767 84 Chapter IV. England’s Colonial Land Policies, 1768 – 1774 99 Chapter V. An Alliance of Interests Opposed to English Rule 124 Chapter VI. Summary and Conclusion 150 References 161 Appendix A: Proclamation of 1763 168 Appendix B: The Quebec Act of 1774 175 Index 183
Subject Areas: Economics [KC]
