Global commerce, international wars, and immigration reshaped the economy and geography of North America between 1680 and 1750. Many colonists thrived, initiating a consumer revolution that transformed daily life and ensured the growth of seaport cities. Others found greater opportunities by pushing inland and establishing farms and communities along new frontiers. But many failed to benefit from either land or trade. White workers caught in a downward economic spiral, enslaved Africans, and Indians on the wrong side of a war—all became victims of international trade and imperial conflicts.
The development of manufacturing in England shaped the lives of working people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. William Moraley Jr., for example, lived out his life in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, making and repairing watches at a time when cheap watches were being turned out in large numbers. While master craftsmen and shop owners could make a good living, those with less skill and fewer funds commanded far lower wages. When Moraley died in January 1762, his only claim to fame was his “adventures” in the American colonies. Yet the nascent industrial revolution had far more positive effects for some colonists. The mechanization of cloth production in England demanded vast amounts of raw material from the English countryside and the colonies. It ensured, for example, the profitability of indigo. This crop benefited many South Carolina planters, including Eliza Lucas and—after her marriage in 1744—her husband, Charles Pinckney, a successful planter himself. Still, profits from indigo could be gained only through the labor of hundreds of slaves.
Eliza Pinckney’s sons became important leaders in the colony, and despite their English education and the benefits they gained through British trade, both developed a strong belief in the rights of the colonies to control their own destinies. Like many American colonists, they were spurred by the consumer revolution, geographical expansion, growing religious and ethnic diversity, and conflicts with Indian and European enemies to develop a mind-set that differed significantly from their counterparts back home. As the fortunes of colonists rose or fell with the changing dynamics of global trade and as they grappled with the claims of Indians and the growth of slavery, some reimagined their relationships not only to production and consumption, agriculture and commerce, but also to the religious and political beliefs that had sustained them for generations.