READ: Global Production and Distribution in 1750

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People in 1750 had fewer possessions than we do today. In fact, most of the world's population got by with hardly any material goods. They still needed food and drink, of course – probably more since, in the days before tractors, farmers needed about twice the calories we need to get through the work day. In addition to clothing – made from cotton, wool, leather, flax, or silk – they needed metal tools, pots to cook in or store food, candles for light, fuel to burn, and lots of other stuff. Some could afford luxuries, such fancy clothes and food, jewelry, fans, books, art, and new inventions like watches.

Who made all of this stuff? Who consumed it? How did it get from where it was produced to where it was used? Comprehensive answers to these questions would fill several books, and you don't have that kind of time in a one- year class! The good news is that we can at least outline some big patterns that will give you a sense of where things stood with production and distribution in 1750.

In 1750, the Industrial Revolution had just begun… sorta. In Britain, people were building a few inefficient steam- powered machines to do work. But for almost everyone in Britain and the rest of the world, production was still pre-industrial. What does this mean?

First, most things were made by families, which were the primary economic unit of the age. Families – often large and extended – pooled their labor and shared the things they made. Mostly they made food for themselves. Nearly everyone was a farmer, a pastoralist (animal herder), or a bit of both. Some people hunted or fished to feed their family. They mostly had basic hand-tools and maybe a plow pulled by oxen, and they mostly made the stuff they needed on a day-to-day basis. Woven mats, wooden bowls, even houses were made by the people using and living in them. Families sometimes produced extra food or goods to sell in town – work that was often done by women. Many worked together on small mines or in rivers to pull out metal and other materials to make luxury goods that could be sold, if on a pretty small scale.

There were some big farms that produced food – either for their own consumption or to be sold as cash crops – and were worked by large groups of laborers. In some places, these workers were paid for their labor. More often, as was frequently the case in Russia and eastern Europe, they worked because they owed some labor to an aristocratic landowner. Sometimes they worked together on community-owned land that was shared. In most of the European colonies in the Americas, and elsewhere, the workers were neither free nor paid. They were enslaved people doing forced labor.

Some goods, of course, required special skills to produce. These were things made of cloth, leather, metal, stone, as well as paper, ceramics, herbs and healing technologies. Also there was a whole host of other specialty goods that needed specialists to produce them. They were artisans. Instead of making food, they applied their skills and special tools to make things in exchange for payment. They would buy food, instead of growing their own like most people. In many places, like South Asia and West Africa, artisans inherited their jobs from their parents. So if you were a blacksmith's son, your career path most likely led straight to blacksmith. In many places, people believed that these non-food job were mystical or dangerous. That meant specialists earned the reverence of some, and the suspicion of others. In most of Europe, for example, healers were often seen as being not far removed from witches and warlocks.

Separate from these groups were the managers, traders, and other professionals like lawyers and clerks. These people often had greater wealth, but not always higher status. Being a merchant in 1750's China, for example, was not necessarily a high-status job. Priests got much more respect. Very few people had these specialty jobs. Similarly, only a few people were rulers or aristocrats, whose job was to make decisions.

Most of the goods being produced were handmade by individuals working alone. In a few places, there were manufactories where large groups of people produced complex products together, playing different roles in the process. These weren't true factories in the modern sense, and usually didn't have machines. But whether it was porcelain production in China, or sugar production in the Caribbean, these manufactories hinted at the assembly lines and smokestacks that industrialization would soon bring.

In 1750, the world was passing through an "Asian Age". In other words, for hundreds of years, the most valuable stuff in the world – luxury products and consumer goods – was made in Asia. Chinese ceramics and silk, South Asian (Indian) cloth, tea from both places, and spices and gems from Southeast Asia were all immensely desirable. Asia was the workshop of the world, turning out massive amounts of goods for sale.

Trade routes, many of them thousands of years old, took these goods west across the Islamic world and into Europe and Africa. Some of these trade routes went overland across Central Asia, following the ancient set of routes we know today as the Silk Road. Others went by sea across the Indian Ocean.

But two big changes were shifting global trade patterns. The first was the European colonization of the Americas. The second was Europe's new purchasing power for Asian goods, because a large group of Europeans were now gaining wealth from their American colonies. In particular, colonies in Mexico and Bolivia produced huge amounts of silver. While gold was in higher demand, silver still had value in Europe. But in Asia, whose vast populations ran on silver economies, silver was extremely desired.

Suddenly China, India, and much of Asia were willing to sell their luxury and consumer goods to Europeans in exchange for silver, and this silver-for-goods trading system is what connected the world. Silver was mined in the Americas – by enslaved or coerced labor – then sent to either the Philippines or Europe before going on to Asia, where it was exchanged for goods that Europeans wanted.

One of the things that Europeans bought with their silver was cloth from South Asia, a massive trade system in its own right. They took this cloth to Africa, where it was traded for African ivory and gold, at first. Later, though, South Asian cloth would be used to buy enslaved people, who were then forcibly taken to the Americas. There, the enslaved generated more wealth for European merchants. Some labored in silver mines. Most, however, worked on plantations producing other luxury goods – especially tobacco and sugar – for Europeans who could afford them. Indigenous Americans and European hunters and trappers traded other luxury goods from the Americas, especially furs and timber. American luxuries such as sugar, tobacco, and furs were sent back to Europe, where they were sold or exchanged for Asian luxury goods.

By 1750, European ships carried much of the world's trade. Well, the ships were European, but many of the sailors were African, Asian, indigenous American, or Polynesian. Europeans dominated shipping for a few reasons. Geographically, Europe's long coastlines motivated the development of ship-building and navigation technologies. So they put those technologies in action in their drive to get access to Asian luxury goods. When they obtained access to the great forests of the Americas, whose lumber was for perfect for shipbuilding, they had an even greater advantage. Much of Europe – and Eurasia in general – had been deforested by 1750. The great European naval fleets were built by American wood. Finally, in their desire for foreign goods, and possessing large amounts of American silver, Europeans had developed a really sophisticated financial system. Their banks, insurance companies, and investment systems would later create what we call the "capitalist" system. These new financial innovations helped European merchants pool their money to pay for expensive ships.

Today, it seems obvious that the world was about to enter a "European Age" soon after 1750, and that European and Euro-American economies would dominate for two centuries. But the 1750 people didn't see things that way. South and East Asia were still producing most of the luxury and consumer products. Other than silver, European goods weren't in demand. Sure, European shipping dominated the seas, but overland trade routes through Central Asia were still pretty important. Similarly, nobody foresaw that the way everyone worked and made stuff was about to go through a major transformation. There were no real factories in 1750. The few powered machines were very interesting, but not efficient enough to look like the future of production – but they were. The finest things were still handmade by individual artisans. Industrialization wasn't even really a word yet. Yet in the years to come, this word would name one of the biggest watersheds in world history.

Trevor Getz is a professor of African and world history at San Francisco State University. He has been the author or editor of 11 books, including the award-winning graphic history Abina and the Important Men, and has coproduced several prize-winning documentaries. Trevor is also the author of A Primer for Teaching African History, which explores questions about how we should teach the history of Africa in high school and university classes.