Intercontinental Trade Quotes

Jefferson was usually far in advance of most men in his understanding of science and technology. However, he missed the boat literally and figuratively on this project. He did not think that the technology and engineering of the day were sufficient to complete such a huge a complicated project. His experience in the South was that large projects would require large numbers of slaves who had to do highly technical work that was also very challenging physically. The great problem was that the New York area was filled with huge, deep rooted trees. The canal would have to wind around the giant trees and still be navigable. This was a case where Jefferson’s Southern insularity hampered him. He did not count on two things: First was the engineering technology of New York where there were very few slaves and labor saving technology was valued and well developed. New York engineers had huge horse powered machines that could remove the stumps of the largest trees in less than an hour. The Erie Canal would not go around the large trees but straight through the forest shortening the canal digging substantially. Second, he did not realize what free Irish labor was capable of in terms of productivity and mixing brain and brawn. Although he rejected the idea, De Witt Clinton convinced the NY State legislature of the feasibility and the legislature appropriated the then enormous sum of $7 million. The Erie Canal was the most important development project in the nation until the railroad. New York became the richest and largest state as a result and New York City went from a medium sized city to the largest city and the largest port in the country.

This was an old belief amongst the monarchs of Europe. The logic always involved comparisons with the landowners of the kingdom and the peasants or serfs compared with the merchants. The former two groups were tied to the land. The peasant could not afford to go anywhere else and if the landowner did, he lost his wealth. So both groups would support the king and fight off invaders. In contrast, the merchant to some degree had three things, each of which made him able to pick up and go to another land. They often had capital in the form of gold, silver or gemstones, that they could take with them to another country. Then they had inventory of whatever their trade was. This was more difficult to move than gold, but still much more movable than land. Last and most important, they had skills—they could read and write and knew arithmetic, skills which many rich nobles did not have. Even many of the kings were illiterate. Merchants could move to another land and use their skills there. So they were always suspect because they were not tied to the land as much as the others. Also. many merchants traveled abroad and had dealings with foreigners who were always considered potential enemies. So the merchants were all the more suspicious as they communicated with the “foreign enemy”. Immigrants were also suspect as they had family and friends in potentially enemy countries. If the immigrant was a merchant, he was doubly suspect. Jews were in many counties legally barred from owning land or practicing a profession, so many became merchants. Then they did not have the same degree of loyalty to the land and the rulers. This was one of the reasons for the anti-Semitism of the time.

It was the Dutch that first founded New York and there were many mercantile relationships existing between New Yorkers and Dutch merchants. Initially, the Dutch gunpowder was smuggled into New York because it was less expensive than English gunpowder or gunpowder from Kentucky or other parts of America. (The transportation costs by ship from Holland were much less than the overland cost from Kentucky.) By 1774, there was great friction between American patriots and the British and the smuggling was used to stockpile gunpowder for a possible revolutionary war. See {636944} for insight into the gunpowder shortage.