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Reviews of Books
Creole Gentlemen: The Maryland Elite, 1691–1776. By
TREVOR BURNARD. New World
in the Atlantic World. (New York and London: Routledge, 2002. Pp. x, 278.
$85.00 cloth, $23.95 paper.)
Reviewed by Kevin P. Kelly, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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Trevor Burnard notes that, whereas the ordinary men and women of the Chesapeake region have received much recent attention from historians, the area's wealthy elite have not. He aims to remedy that situation with this comprehensive examination of colonial Maryland's wealthiest planters. Based on a study of the 461 men who left probated estates valued at more than £650, Burnard shows how the elite grew wealthy, how they preserved their wealth, and how they transferred it to the next generation. He also uncovers key demographic characteristics of Maryland's wealthy planters and the extent of their involvement in the credit networks of the North Atlantic economy. |
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Some of Burnard's discussion, especially about the emergence of a provincial identity, ably summarizes the recent work of colonial Chesapeake historians. But the real strength of this book is the collective biography of Maryland's economic elite from four counties: Anne Arundel and Baltimore on the Western Shore and Talbot and Somerset on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Although their estates accounted for only 7 percent of all probated estates in these counties, these men held more than half the cumulated inventoried wealth. Compared to their neighbors, they were very rich. |
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Study of these decedents reveals several important points about the colony's upper class. For example, the means by which Maryland's elite gained its wealth changed from the late seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth century. Members of the earlier elite spent little on personal goods, investing instead in land and, increasingly, in slaves as a means of building their estates. Many were immigrants who used their overseas connections to add trading activities to their planting endeavors. By midcentury, the next generation had largely withdrawn from trade and drew most of their income from the fruits of their plantations. Part of the shift is explained by changes in trade practices that put native-born Marylanders who had fewer overseas connections at a disadvantage. But Burnard also argues that many of the later creole elite chose to avoid the greater risks involved in trade, opting instead for safer returns from planting. Burnard speculates that this risk aversion was driven not by fear of the market but by a rational response to an improved economic situation after midcentury. |
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If the road to wealth changed, another aspect of the lives of the elite remained the same. Eighteenth-century planters had life spans as short as seventeenth-century planters; the average age at death remained at or close to fifty-two years. Moreover, more than 50 percent died by their fifty-fifth year. Burnard stresses that this finding should overturn the existing model of the colonial Chesapeake's demographic history, which emphasizes marked improvements in mortality in the eighteenth century. At the very least, Burnard's work should prompt further study. |
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