During the Revolutionary War, British warships had temporarily destroyed the New England fishing industry and seized many American merchant ships. Southern states, where tobacco and rice were key exports, and even the grain regions of the North, suffered a disruption of trade following the long fight for independence.

When British troops had occupied port cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Newport, trade virtually ceased. Peace didn't bring back prewar prosperity. British merchants, angry over the war as well as unpaid debts, refused tobacco from the Chesapeake, and in South Carolina the indigo industry collapsed. American ships no longer traded with the sugar islands in the British West Indies, thanks to the British Navigation Acts. The result was a commercial recession spanning nearly two decades. By 1790, the value of American exports was a fraction of what it had been twenty years earlier, and with the standard of living in decline, America was ripe for economic conflict.