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Date of Award

Spring 2024

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Price, Hunter

Second Advisor

Neem, Johann N.

Third Advisor

Hardesty, Jared

Abstract

Much of the scholarship surrounding the Jay Treaty, ranging from the diplomatic histories of the 1960s to the social histories of recent decades, has been predominantly focused on the treaty’s role in American political culture and party development. Building on the work of mid-century diplomatic historians, Atlantic scholars like Eliga H. Gould, and scholars of political culture like Todd Estes, this thesis situates the Jay Treaty within a broader Atlantic context, and frames it as an important chapter in longer trans-Atlantic debates over Anglo-American relations and imperial commercial policies. When the Jay Treaty is analyzed through an Atlantic lens, the complexities of the transition from mercantilism to free trade become far more apparent. While free trade enjoyed unified support among American merchants and policymakers in the 1790s, their counterparts in the British Empire were markedly less certain of its benefits. As West Indian planters sporadically called for open trade with the United States as a pragmatic expedient to maintain their system of plantation slavery, government officials and political radicals in Great Britain were locked in contentious debates about the future of their imperial economy – debates which demonstrated the continuing strength of mercantilist ideology even under the auspices of the liberal Pitt ministry. Rather than reinforcing a triumphalist narrative of inevitable Smithian free trade, an Atlantic-focused analysis of the discourse surrounding the Jay Treaty instead reveals an Anglosphere in flux, where merchants, planters, politicians, and political radicals attempted to reconstruct the Anglo-American commercial sphere and shape the uncertain future of global commerce.

Type

Text

Keywords

Jay Treaty, Free Trade, Mercantilism

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1439135070

Subject – LCSH

Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, with the United States of America (1794 November 19); United States--Foreign relations--1789-1797; Free trade--United States; Commercialism--United States

Geographic Coverage

United States

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

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