ABSTRACT
Scholars exploring the changes in colonial commerce and economic culture frequently emphasize the role of importing wholesalers who depended on creditors in London for a variety of commodities, such as the textiles, earthenware, and agricultural implements, that colonists could not produce in sufficient quantity for themselves. Diverse strategies of local labor and household production made it possible for settlers at some distance from port cities to expand their consumption of goods from overseas. Perspectives offered about either transatlantic commerce or colonial agricultural markets have resisted a synthetic appreciation of economic processes that extended from remote trading posts and farmsteads to Caribbean and northern European ports. Crucial arbiters of internal commerce and advocates of consequential policies that would shape their particular interests were the non-elite members of New York City's merchant community. Season after season, lesser merchants expressed anxiety about failing to establish balance of freedom and regulation that they believed would lead them into the ranks of great international wholesalers.
