"Doing Business In the Revolutionary Interest: John Ballendine and Eighteenth-Century Capitalism"

John Ballendine was an eighteenth-century American businessman and entrepreneur. His career spanned the years of the American Revolution, and intersected with that political upheaval in meaningful ways. Having failed to win imperial funding for his business, Ballendine saw the revolution as an opportunity to secure support from the new revolutionary states for his plans to operate a major iron-production facility and to construct a canal from the Tidewater into the North American continent. He petitioned the revolutionary government of Virginia, and despite reversals, eventually won a contract to build both his ironworks and his canal, and to operate the same in the revolutionary interest. This paper examines the Ballendine story as an example of the complexities of eighteenth-century capitalism, and its relationship with the state in a time when both capitalism and state were in flux. While he did not make a fortune, by doing business in the revolutionary interest Ballendine was able to make a living during a time of violence and uncertainty.