John Smith and the Virus of Trade

The revolution in prices, in R. H. Tawney's words, "injected a virus of hitherto unsuspected potency, at once a stimulant to feverish enterprise and an acid dissolving all customary relationships". The virus of trade had "nourished itself like an alien body within the pores of feudal society". Men and women worked the countryside as itinerant traders—petty chapmen, badgers, hawkers, hucksters, and peddlers—bringing dry goods, foodstuffs, and "unconsidered trifles" to out of the way places. Violations of economic exchange were theft, the unlawful possession of another individual's property, or inundation, the oversupply of a good in the market, leading to price falls and a falling off of trade. Powhatan grasped the centrality of the criterion of exchangeability, but as paramount chief he was able to avoid contamination by the virus of trade. His last offer to John Smith was "40 bushels" for "40 swords".

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