EconAir

  Colonial Farm Kitchen. Notice clock in the corner.   SUMMARY OF AMERICAN COLONIAL HISTORY ECONOMY Although predominantly agricultural, America prospered as a British colony because:   §    America was an important part of the British trading system, as regulated by the Navigation Acts.  Based on Atlantic trade, this was a dynamic and growing international trade zone. o     The richest Americans in 1775 were the rice planters of South Carolina and the tobacco growers of Virginia and Maryland. Both groups had a monopoly in the English markets. §    Tobacco growers imported large numbers of slaves in the 1700s because of a lack of indentured servants from Europe. o     New England provided ships, shipping services, and related merchant services to the English system. New England ships handled most of the trade with the West Indies.  o     In the Middle Atlantic colonies, farm surpluses entered ...

  Earliest known photograph of slaves and cotton, around 1850 Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine, December 6, 2019 A New Nation, America from 1789 to 1860 If you study American history from 1789 to 1860 (just before the start of the Civil War), the political history is very complicated. But remember what caused most of these political conflicts and uneasy compromises - the dynamic changes in the underlying economy. Two in particular – the spectacular increase in slave-produced cotton and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in America. They were related.   What is the Industrial Revolution? At its heart it is power-driven metal machinery producing huge quantities of goods. At first, the power was supplied by steam engines and water wheels. Later, in the 20 th  century, electricity. All of this used huge amounts of fossil fuels – first coal, later oil and natural gas were added. America had huge quantities of all three.   A trend that continued from colonial time...