HORSE RAISING IN COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND 

 Deane Phillips 



With the rapid rise of the sugar industry in the West Indies during 

 the latter half of the seventeenth century, the continental Britisli 

 colonies in America were called upon to serve as the main source of 

 supplies for the sugar plantations. An important trade grew up, 

 especially with the New England region, in which the islands received 

 lumber, fish, foodstuffs of various sorts, cattle, and horses. In return 

 the northern colonies obtained sugar, molasses, rum, dyestuffs, and — 

 of especial importance to New England — specie in various forms which 

 could be used for purchasing manufactured articles and other needed 

 supplies from England. 



Horses were used on the sugar plantations to turn the rollers of the 

 cane-crushing mills, to haul the cane from the fields, and to transport 

 sugar and supplies. They were in demand for saddle purposes also. 

 As far as New England was concerned, there is ample evidence that 

 the exportation of horses to supply this need of the sugar islands formed 

 a very important part of the commerce which was carried on between 

 the two groups of British colonies in the New World, and that it was 

 equally important in the trade which grow up between New England 

 and the French West Indies when these islands also began the cultiva- 

 tion of sugar. The observations of contemporary writers, the reports 

 of the various colonial governors to the Board of Trade in London, 

 port records and various commercial statistics of the period which have 

 been made available by modern research, and many other scattered 

 sources of information, indicate that this was the case. 



It is apparent that the development of such an export trade in horses 

 must have stimulated a corresponding development of horse raising 

 on a commercial scale. In this memoir an attempt has been made to 

 gather together such widely scattered data as are available concerning 

 this early agricultural enterprise of New England, and to trace its 

 development and extent during the colonial period. Since, from its 

 nature, this raising of horses was intimately bound up with the sugar 



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