The Enduring Commons: Ecology, Politics, and Economic Life in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1691 - 1815.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the historical development of Plymouth County, Massachusetts during the period 1691-1815, using ecology, politics, and economic life as lenses. Utilizing the local records of three towns -- Duxbury, Pembroke, and Wareham -- it argues that, after the initial conquest of the Wampanoag and the Massachusett, the Anglo-American settlers of the county, in the years between the late 17th and the early 19th centuries, created and maintained an enduring commons regime after English patterns, embracing water, woods, fields, and more. This was part and parcel of a more or less “traditional” economy. Of particular importance were the runs of anadromous fish that swam up the county’s rivers each spring to spawn. These fish, in the herring family, served as a significant source of food in the late winter and spring, as well as the most visible manifestation of the continuity of the county’s commons regime. Taken as a whole, these commons constituted a counterpoint to emerging forces of nascent market capitalism. Nevertheless, by the end of the period of this study, in the years surrounding the War of 1812, Plymouth County was moving, recognizably but not fully, towards capitalist transformation, with a boom in shipbuilding and the construction of textile and other factories. Still, the commons persisted alongside them. In addition to ecological and economic changes, politics played an important role, as the towns of the county underwent war, political revolution, and the transition from monarchy to a republic, at the same time maintaining long-established structures of local government and participating in increasingly contested elections and the First Party System. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to engage -- in the tradition of E.P. Thompson, Charles Sellers, and others -- in a long-standing historiographical debate about the origins of capitalism, both in New England and early America, and the greater Atlantic World.