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Lecture 5: Colonial Economics

Columbian ExchangeThe period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New and Old Worlds.

Exchanges of plants, animals, diseases, and technology.

The Columbian Exchange impacted the social and cultural makeup of both sides of the Atlantic.

Mercantilism

Trade / Taxation

Columbian Exchange

Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - Triangle Trade

Colonial Economic Structures

Economic Diversity Among Coloniesby Geographic Location ● New England Colonies - Massachusetts

(1620), Rhode Island (1636), Connecticut (1636), New Hampshire (1638).

● Middle Colonies - New York (1664), Pennsylvania (1682), New Jersey (1664), Delaware (1638).

● Southern Colonies - Virginia (1607), Maryland (1632), South Carolina (1663), North Carolina (1663), Georgia (1732).

Mercantilism A system based on the belief that colonies existed in order to increase the mother country's wealth. (Economic nationalism)

England tried to regulate trade, and forbid colonies from trading with other European countries.

England also maintained the right to tax the colonies.

Export more than Import. Use Colonies to export raw materials. County’s dominance/wealth is dependent on what it trades and how it gets access to it.

Trade and Tariff Difficult for England to control, and so an informal agreement emerged.

England regulated trade, but allowed colonists the right to levy their own taxes.

Transatlantic Slave Trade The Transatlantic slave trade, often known as the triangular trade, connected the economies of three continents.

It is estimated that between 25 to 30 million people, men, women and children, were deported from their homes and sold as slaves in the different slave trading systems.

In the transatlantic slave trade alone the estimate of those deported is believed to be approximately 17 million.

Economic Impact of Triangular TradeThe arrival of Europeans in the Americas had brought diseases that devastated local populations, which reduced the potential for securing labour from that source; and often too few Europeans came to the Americas to meet the demand for labour.

Of the 6.5 million immigrants who survived the crossing of the Atlantic and settled in the Western Hemisphere between 1492 and 1776, only 1 million were Europeans. The remaining 5.5 million were African. An average of 80 percent of these enslaved Africans—men, women, and children—were employed, mostly as field-workers. Women as well as children worked in some capacity. Only very young children (under six), the elderly, the sick, and the infirm escaped the day-to-day work routine.

Historical Phenomenon... The Atlantic slave trade was one of the most important, and unfortunate, examples of forced migration in human history. While slavery in the U.S. is well-documented, only ten percent of the slaves imported from Africa came to the United States; the other ninety per cent were disbursed throughout the Americas—nearly half went to Brazil alone.

Think About:

What did slavery look like in other parts of the New World?

What are the lingering effects on the modern world?

"When their day's work in the field is down, the most of them have their washing, mending and cooking to do, and having few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing either of these, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day; and when this is done…they drop down side by side on one common bed - the cold damp floor…"

A plantation in the deep south, described by former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass.