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and Geography Service Government Virginia. History
Published by Good Press, 2019
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Leadership also changed dramatically in Virginia in the 1760's. This was partially due to changing economic conditions. Prosperity did not return as rapidly as expected. The long war probably masked a basic flaw in the Virginia economy which Virginians believed they had solved—they were too reliant on tobacco. The great Virginia fortunes of the mid-18th Century were built on extensive credit from Britain, the efficient operation of the mercantile system, the initiative and enterprise of Scots merchants who had succeeded in marketing in Europe nearly all the tobacco produced by the new planters in the Piedmont and Northern Neck, and by the prudence of the planters themselves.
Such a favorable balance of economic factors did not exist in the 1760's. The European market could not absorb continued annual increases in the good, cheap tobacco Virginia produced. Prices fell. With an oversupply of tobacco in the warehouses, English and Scots merchants limited further credit extensions and called for repayment of long-outstanding loans. Within Virginia the centers of tobacco production shifted from the older, worn-out Tidewater lands to the newer, richer soils along the Fall Line, on the Piedmont, and in the Northern Neck. A few men like George Washington switched from tobacco to wheat, corn, barley, and rye. Most Tidewater planters did not realize fully what was happening to them, presuming at first that they were just in another swing of the unpredictable tobacco business cycle, and were not caught in a situation which would be permanent. Eventually the total debt of Virginians, most of it owned by Tidewater planters, to Scots and English merchant houses reached £2,000,000, equalling the total private debts of the other 12 colonies.
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