Early American Colonial Life: Politics & Economics

Baltimore Town in 1752 by John Moale
(Maryland Historical Society)

I.  Mercantilist system

A. Colonies exist as a market for home-country's goods and a supplier of raw materials

B. All trade with other nations needs to go through the home-country. Series of Navigation Acts began in 1651

1. All trade had to be on English or colonial ships
2. Enumerated products (tobacco, sugar, indigo, cotton, etc.) could be shipped only to England or another English colony
3. Certain English-made goods (gunpowder, silk) were subsidized to undercut European competitors

II. Glorious Revolution of 1688

III. Four Major Regions (Plantation South, Middle Colonies, New England, and Frontier)

A. Plantation South

1. Tidewater region featured wide coastal plain, wide rivers, and rich soil particularly well-suited to tobacco farming.

a) Large plantations became economically more successful as soil was exhausted, leading to self-sufficing economic units.
b) As indentured servants became harder to obtain (and retain), demand for slaves increased (400,000) in colonies by 1776

2. Only children of planters were educated and higher education was only for those who could afford it.

3. Plantation owners became the leading economic, political, and social forces of the South. Democracy limited to wealthy landowners.

B. Middle Colonies--farming, manufacturing center

a). Dutch in Hudson Valley
b). Germans in Pennsylvania
c). Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania
C. New England--rapid rivers and rocky soil

D. Backcountry/Frontier--continually moving region: "The West."

IV. Growth of Colonial Assemblies

A. Following the lead of the Whigs who had established limits on the power of the crown with the Glorious Revolution, American colonial assemblies sought to limit royal authority and assert local control over

1) taxes
2) appointment of local officials
3) setting the governor's salary