Colonial Economies

Colonial Economies By: Alexis Dyer Victoria Juhasz Rebecca Telese Nicole Williams

Southern Economies • Tobacco. • Overproduction. • Production of tobacco exceeded demand so the price of tobacco suffered severe declines. • Farmer’s expanded their fields for tobacco and due to that more slaves came in. • Rice. • By building dams and dikes along rivers it created rice patties. • Rice was hard to grow, so more African slaves were hired to do the hard work. • Eliza Lucas cultivated the West Indian plant which was indigo and found it was a blue dye. • Indigo contributed to the South Carolina economy. Pictures: google.com/images

Northern Economic and Technological Life. • More diverse agriculture in the north. • Harnessed water power to run small mills for grinding grain, processing cloth, and milling lumber: large scale ship building operations began to form. • Iron works: • The first effort to make a metal industry was in Saugus, Massachusetts. • They used water power to control the heat in a charcoal furnace. • Ended up becoming a financial failure. • Metal works gradually became an important part of colonial economy. Pictures: google.com/images

The Extent and Limits of Technology • Half the farmers in the colonies were so primitively equipped that they didn’t even have a plow. • Members of households didn’t have any pots or kettles for cooking. • Only about half the households owned guns and rifles. • Many households had few, if any, candles. • Relatively few colonial families owned spinning wheels or looms, so they must have purchased their yarn and cloth from merchants. Pictures: google.com/images

The Rise of Colonial Commerce • Colonial commerce was remarkable because it was able to survive it all. • They experimented with different types of currency like: • Tobacco certificates (secured by tobacco stores and warehouses) • Land certificates (secured by property) • Beaver skins • The mainland colonies received sugar, molasses, and slaves from the Caribbean markets in return for rum, agricultural products, meat and fish. • Many colonial products-fish, flour, wheat, and meat, all of which England could produce for itself-required markets outside the British empire. Pictures: google.com/images

The Rise of Consumerism • The population began to grow with new prosperity and commercialism, which created a hunger for the consumption of material goods, which would show off their wealth and social status. • One thing that spurred it was the increasing separation of the American societies by class. • Europe was creating more affordable good for American’s to buy. • Consumption also grew because of increasing tendency among colonists to take on debt, to finance purchases, and the willingness of some merchants to offer credit. Pictures: google.com/images

The Rise of Consumerism (continued) • The growing importance of consumption and refinement was visible in the public spaces. • The ideal of being educated, refined, gentlemanly, or ladylike, became increasingly powerful throughout the colonies. They bought magazines about London society, and they strived to develop themselves as witty and educated conversationalists. Pictures: google.com/images

THE END

Colonial Economies