ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses specifically on debates that occurred in the periphery on the merits of a closed trading system in the exchange of transnational consumer goods. These debates led to continued illegal colonial trade with the Dutch in the second half of the 17th century and into the early 18th century, when trade choices shifted back to England. It also focuses on selected examples from a much larger study that explores the impacts of trade, exchange, violence, and political ideology on community formation and the development of a British Atlantic identity in the Potomac River Valley during the long 17th century. As Kathleen Deagan has pointed out, household and community-based research of illicit trade can aid in 'framing comparative studies of colonial economic development related to emergent American identity, and ultimately, the separation of colonies from their imperial centers'.
