scholarly journals Colonial American Paper Money and the Quantity Theory of Money: An Extension

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farley Grubb
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
North American ◽  
Statistical Relationship ◽  
Quantity Theory ◽  
Paper Money ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Monetary Unit ◽  
And Performance ◽  
British North American

The quantity theory of money is applied to the paper money regimes of seven of the nine British North American colonies south of New England. Individual colonies, and regional groupings of contiguous colonies treated as one monetary unit, are tested. Little to no statistical relationship, and little to no magnitude of influence, between the quantities of paper money in circulation and prices are found. The quantity theory of money does not explain the value and performance of colonial paper monies well. This is a general and widespread result, and not a rare and isolated phenomenon.

Piracy in Colonial North America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark G. Hanna
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
New England ◽  
North American ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
British North America ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
The North ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
British North American

Historians of colonial British North America have largely relegated piracy to the marginalia of the broad historical narrative from settlement to revolution. However, piracy and unregulated privateering played a pivotal role in the development of every English community along the eastern seaboard from the Carolinas to New England. Although many pirates originated in the British North American colonies and represented a diverse social spectrum, they were not supported and protected in these port communities by some underclass or proto-proletariat but by the highest echelons of colonial society, especially by colonial governors, merchants, and even ministers. Sea marauding in its multiple forms helped shape the economic, legal, political, religious, and cultural worlds of colonial America. The illicit market that brought longed-for bullion, slaves, and luxury goods integrated British North American communities with the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Pacific and Indian Oceans throughout the 17th century. Attempts to curb the support of sea marauding at the turn of the 18th century exposed sometimes violent divisions between local merchant interests and royal officials currying favor back in England, leading to debates over the protection of English liberties across the Atlantic. When the North American colonies finally closed their ports to English pirates during the years following the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), it sparked a brief yet dramatic turn of events where English marauders preyed upon the shipping belonging to their former “nests.” During the 18th century, colonial communities began to actively support a more regulated form of privateering against agreed upon enemies that would become a hallmark of patriot maritime warfare during the American Revolution.

The Coastal Trade of the British North American Colonies, 1768–1772

1972 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 783-810 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Shepherd ◽  
Samuel H. Williamson
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
North American ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
American States ◽  
British North American ◽  
British Colonies ◽  
Poor Relation

The coastal trade of the British North American colonies, as well as the coastal trade among the American states and the remaining British colonies after the American Revolution and well into the nineteenth century, remains one of those areas in North American economic history about which we know very little. The broad outlines and patterns of this coastal trade, or various segments of it, have been described by others, but as Arthur L. Jensen has put it: “Trade among the continental colonies has been treated as something of a poor relation in many studies of colonial commerce.” The most serious inadequacy is the lack of any overall view of the specific patterns and magnitudes of the coastal trade and its relationship both to the overseas trades and to overall economic activity. Various and strikingly contrasting views have been expressed. One historian of transportation states: “Prior to the Revolution intercolonial commerce was inconsiderable, and intercolonial trade-routes, where they existed, were entirely inadequate.” On the other hand, Innis, in referring to the trade between Newfoundland and New England, states that in 1765 exports from New England to Newfoundland probably exceeded £200,000 sterling (including smuggling), and that by 1774 they had reached £.300,000 or £400,000.

Creating Maryland’s Paper Money Economy, 1720–1740: The Confluence of Political Constituencies, Economic Forces, Transatlantic Markets, and Law

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-58
Author(s):  
Farley Grubb
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Paper Money ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Money Economy ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
The Creation ◽  
British North American ◽  
Successes And Failures

The British North American colonies were the first western economies to rely on colony-specific legislature-issued paper money as a medium of exchange for domestic transactions. The creation of paper money regimes arose piecemeal among the colonies, making each story unique. Maryland’s story is the most complex among the colonies, since the emission of paper money resulted from an attempt to control and manipulate the tobacco market. The paper discusses how market forces, legal maneuverings, and the power of various constituencies combined to shape Maryland’s particular paper money system, assesses its successes and failures, and identifies the winners and losers among Maryland’s political classes as a result of this paper money experiment.

The Rate of Settlement of the Canadian Prairies, 1870–1911

1975 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 410-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. H. Norrie
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Canadian Prairies ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Central Canada ◽  
British North American ◽  
Canadian Economic History

An issue of continuing interest in Canadian economic history is the lag between the formulation of policies directed toward settling the prairies and the appearance of any significant agricultural population. Proposals to develop the region preceded the union of the British North American colonies in 1867. By 1872 the first Homestead Act had been passed and a commitment made to construct a transcontinental railway linking the western provinces to Central Canada. Yet except for a brief speculative boom in the early 1880's, occasioned by the CPR reaching Winnipeg, the rate of settlement remained well below expectations. Homestead entries averaged under 3,000 from 1874 to 1896, and in many years there were nearly as many cancellations as new entries. In the same period adjacent American lands were filling up, in large part with emigrant Canadians. Settlement of the Dakotas, beginning in 1870 but depressed from 1873 to 1878, boomed from 1879 to 1886. Over the thirty years from 1870 to 1900 an estimated 120,000 Canadians chose the American prairies over the Canadian.

Estimates of “Invisible” Earnings in the Balance of Payments of the British North American Colonies, 1768–1772

1969 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Shepherd ◽  
Gary M. Walton
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
New England ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Commodity Trade ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Widespread Agreement ◽  
Middle Colonies ◽  
Significant Deficit ◽  
Balance Of Trade ◽  
British North American

There is widespread agreement among historians of the colonial period, as there was among contemporary observers, that a significant deficit existed in the American colonies' balance of trade with Great Britain. That a large deficit did exist in the late colonial period is shown by estimates of commodity trade given in Table 1 for the period 1768 through 1772 (for which period statistics of all legal overseas trade exist in the “American Inspector-General's Ledgers”). It is clear from Table 1 that the overall deficit in the commodity trade with the British Isles was due mainly to the deficits incurred by New England and the middle colonies. Similarly, it appears that on the average for this five-year period, the southern colonies, as well, incurred a deficit—although a small one—in their commodity trade with Great Britain.

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