Backcountry Wheat, Global Markets, and the Rise of Baltimore, 1765–1775

ABSTRACT Wheat, mostly as flour, was Pennsylvania’s major overseas export in the eighteenth century. It mainly went to the West Indies. Poor harvests in Great Britain, Ireland, and Europe in the 1760s created a surge in demand for American wheat and flour. Baltimore merchants seized the opportunity. With better links by road to the Pennsylvania and Maryland backcountry, Baltimore emerged as a major grain shipping port. While shipments from Philadelphia and Baltimore to southern Europe were much larger, the Irish market was important for Baltimore. Philadelphia and Baltimore merchants worked in mutual dependence to exploit the expanding global market and the shift from tobacco to grain in the Chesapeake region.