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How did leather contribute to the declaring of independence?

Were Leather Goods a Factor in the Colonists Declaring their Independence from Great Britain?  Could leather have been a great contributor to the American Colonists’ dissatisfaction with England, leading them to declare their independence and rights?  When England’s King ruled that the Colonies were not allowed to compete with manufacturers from England on a whole list of items, Colonists were kept out of the leather goods market.

In the 1770′s, the colonies were inhabited by European settlers who had arrived with dreams of a better life. Some dreamed of creating wealth by utilizing the natural resources available. A vision of producing goods to trade with the other colonies of the new world and even with foreign countries looked obtainable. What had begun as cottage industries, small scale production, had potential to expand way beyond being self-sufficient. Colonists were leather tanning and shoe making, furniture and tool making, cloth weaving and sewing apparel.

The largest industry in the Eastern or New England Colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut), was shipbuilding.  Natural harbors allowed merchants of New England to earn a good living. They traveled by sea to fish and trade with Europe and the West Indian Islands.

Agriculture on family-sized farms in the Middle Colonies, (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) produced surpluses of grains. The chief occupations of people of that region were farmers and flour makers. Philadelphia was the trade center.  Lumber was cut, iron and paper were manufactured.  Along the frontier there was lively fur trade with the Indians.

In the Southern Colonies (Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia), there were no large centers of population. There were no businesses or incentive to build towns. In Virginia, when Williamsburg was the new capital, it was a village of just 200 houses.

The planters of the Southern Colonies owned immense plantations along river banks. Labor on the plantations was performed by slaves.  South Carolina grew rice, the others grew mostly tobacco. They carried on trade extensively with the mother country, England. With each shipment sent from the Colonies, a long list was also sent of articles to be bought from England to be purchased with the proceeds of the rice or tobacco crop.  All articles of hardware, glass, crockery, clothing, (including leather goods) furniture, household utensils, wine, household goods, brass and cooper wares and iron utensils were all brought back to the Southern Colonies from England.

“The country abounded in trees, yet tables, chairs, boxes, cart wheels, bowls, birch brooms, all came from the mother country.  The wood used for building houses was actually cut, sent to England as logs to be dressed, and then taken back to Virginia for use.” From School History of the United States by McMaster 1912

According to the laws of Mercantile Trade, this is how the colonists should carry on trade. Paper and hats were made in small quantities, leather was tanned, lumber was sawed, but people had to depend on homemade, self-sufficiency or imported finished goods, with high tariffs from England.

But while Britain was off fighting wars in Europe, industrialization had begun in the colonies. Contact with other people on the continent and abroad, had been made through trade.  The colonists’ economy was flourishing.  When the colonies attracted Great Britain’s attention, enforcement of their policies of mercantilism stifled economic growth. The colonies existed first and foremost to benefit the mother country.  Acquiring colonies was only to exploit their raw materials and develop another export market for the mother country’s goods.  The wealth of a nation at that time was measured by the accumulation of precious metals including gold and silver. This was accomplished through trade, maximizing exports and minimizing imports.  Traditionally, Europe’s economies had operated under this system. One country could only gain at the expense of another.

As time went on, more adversarial Acts of Trade and Navigation were instituted to regulate Colonial trade. England determined where ships could be built and how many English subjects must be crew members. No goods were allowed to be carried from any place in Europe to America unless they first landed in England.A long list of colonial products could not be exported to any foreign port other than a port of England. The law required that if colonists produced items that would compete with English merchants, they could not even be sold to one of the American Colonies without first going to the mother country to have an export or import duty attached.  These regulations of colonial affairs served only to stifle the entrepreneurial spirit of the colonists that were ready to industrialize and trade with the world and each other.

The British attitude that the colonies were only servants to the crown hurt industrialization efforts and fueled the fires of discontent. If a hat or leather bag was produced in Massachusetts, a colonist in New York would be expected to pay an additional tariff to England.  English Americans believed they deserved but were denied, equal representation at the table with their mother land. Taxes, tariffs and trade policies were being enacted to control hats and leather goods in colonies a vast ocean away. This alienation of the colonists led eventually to the Declaration of Independence, rights, and the subsequent Revolutionary War.

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