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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:


• 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.


• 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 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.


• 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.


• 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.


• 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.


• 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.


• Beyond these domestic efforts,

craftsmen and artisans

established themselves in

colonial towns as cobblers,

blacksmiths, rifle makers,

cabinetmakers, silversmiths, and

printers.


• 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.


• 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.


• 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.


• 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 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.


• Most made do with two-

wheeled 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 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.


• 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 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.


• 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.


• 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.

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