Chapter 3: THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES

Chapter 3: THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES

Objectives: o We will examine the colonial economies of the various colonies by their geographic region. o We will examine the technology that the various colonists developed. o We will examine the growing consumer culture and the desire for goods that developed in the colonies.

Rev_3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Chapter 3: THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES From the beginning, almost all the English colonies were commercial ventures tied in crucial ways to other economies. However most colonies were dominated by farming with the exception of a small population west who subsisted in the fur trade.

Chapter 3: THE COLONIAL ECONOMIES Some farmers engaged in simple subsistence agriculture, but whenever possible, American farmers attempted to grow crops for the local inter-colonial and export markets.

THE SOUTHERN ECONOMY: The Chesapeake region, tobacco quickly became the basis of the economy. A strong European demand for the crop enabled some planters to grow enormously wealthy and at times allowed the region as a whole to prosper. But production sometimes exceeded demand that caused the market to periodically crash. After 1700, tobacco plantations employing several dozen slaves or more were common.

THE SOUTHERN ECONOMY: The staples of the economies of South Carolina and Georgia was rice. Rice cultivation required water to create rice paddies, often standing in knee deep malarial swamps under a blazing sun surrounded by insects, it was a task that many white laborers refused to do. Thus African slaves were used and they were much better at it. They were better resistant to malaria and local diseases.

THE SOUTHERN ECONOMY: In the early 1740s, Eliza Lucas managed her families North American plantations discovered Indigo could grow well in South Carolina. Indigo was a West Indian plant and a source of blue dye in great demand in Europe. It also became a popular import in England.

THE SOUTHERN ECONOMY: Because of the South s early dependence on large-scale cash crops, the Southern colonies developed less of a commercial or industrial economy than the colonies of the north. Trading was handled largely by merchants in London.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: In the North, agriculture was the single most important part of the economy. But unlike in the South, the northern colonies were less dominated by farming. The northern economy was more diverse than the economy in the South in part because conditions for farming was less favorable there.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: Cold weather, rocky soil made it difficult to develop large-scale commercial farming system that southerners were creating. But this region developed a commercial economy along with the agricultural one.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: Almost every colonist engaged in a certain amount of industry at home. Occasionally these home industries provided families with surplus goods they could trade or sell.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: Beyond these domestic efforts, craftsmen and artisans established themselves in colonial towns as cobblers, blacksmiths, rifle makers, cabinetmakers, silversmiths, and printers.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: In some areas, entrepreneurs harnessed water power to run small mills for grinding grain, processing cloth, or milling lumber. And in several large-scale ship building operations began to flourish.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: This region also developed metal works industry. At first it was a failure financially (Saugus Massachusetts) but it gradually became an important part of the colonial economy. The largest being German ironmaster Peter Hasencelver.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: However there was not growing industrial growth partly because Great Britain passed the Iron Act of 1750 restricting the processing metal in the colonies. Inadequate labor supply, a small domestic market, and inadequate transportation facilities and energy supplies prevented the industry to thrive.

Northern Economic and Technological Life: More important than the manufacturing were industries that exploited the natural resources. Lumbering, mining, fishing particularly off the coast of New England cost provided commodities that could be exported to England in exchange for manufactured goods. It kick started a thriving commercial class.

THE EXTENT AND LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY: Despite technological progress, much of colonial society was lacking in basic technologies. Up to half the farmers in the colonies were so primitively equipped that they did not even own a plow. Many did not own pots or kettles for cooking. Half the households did not own fire arms. With rural people almost unlikely to have firearms.

THE EXTENT AND LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY: The relatively low level of ownership of these basic tools was because most Americans were too poor or isolated to afford them. Many house holds only had a few if any candles. In the early eighteenth century, very few farmers owned wagons.

THE EXTENT AND LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGY: Most made do with twowheeled carts. Most colonists were unable to purchase manufactured goods although they were more easily produced. They were not as self sufficient as commonly thought.

THE RISE OF COLONIAL COMMERCE It was amazing that colonial commerce survived. There was no commonly accepted medium of exchange or standard currency. Colonial merchants had to rely on a haphazard barter system or on crude money substitutes such as beaver skins.

THE RISE OF COLONIAL COMMERCE The second obstacle was the near impossibility of imposing order on their trade. No merchants could be certain that the goods they sold would be produced in sufficient quantity. Nor could they be certain finding adequate markets for them.

THE RISE OF COLONIAL COMMERCE Commerce grew. A elaborate costal trade developed. Colonies did business with one another. And sold goods to the West Indies among them rum, agricultural products, meat, and fish.

THE RISE OF COLONIAL COMMERCE The mainland colonies bought sugar, molasses and slaves from the Caribbean markets in return. There was also an expanding transatlantic trade, which linked the North American colonies in an intricate network of commerce with England, continental Europe, and the west coast of Africa. It is called a triangular trade.

THE RISE OF COLONIAL COMMERCE Merchants carried rum and other goods from New England to Africa Exchanged their merchandise for slaves, whom the then transported to the West Indies. The term middle passage the second of the three legs of the voyage was from Africa to the Colonies. Upon arriving, the traders exchanged slaves for sugar and molasses which they shipped back to New England to be distilled into rum.

THE RISE OF COLONIAL COMMERCE Ignoring laws restricting colonial trade to England and its possessions (Navigational Acts), many merchants developed markets in the French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies. Where prices were often higher than in the British colonies. The profits from this illegal commerce enabled the colonies to import the manufactured goods they needed from Europe.

The Rise of Consumerism: Affluent residents of the colonies, the growing prosperity and commercialism of British America created both new appetites and new opportunities. The result was a growing preoccupation with consumption of material goods. Possession of these goods was connected to one s social status.

The Rise of Consumerism: Although goods were to flaunt ones social status, the early stages of the Industrial Revolution also made goods more affordable while there was also a tendency among colonists to take debt to finance purchases. Some merchants were willing to offer credit. Furniture, tea, household linens, glassware were desired to flaunt especially those who lived in the cities along with fashions from Europe. Shift from a primitive pure faith to excess and display.