Pranav Araveti
Mr. Swanson
US HIST 17A
7 July 2023
How Profit-Driven Ventures Shaped the United States
The colonization of North America by the English in the early centuries was driven by many dreams and motivations. While factors such as religious freedom, exploration, and territorial expansion played significant roles, it is undeniable that profit-seeking attempts were crucial to the establishment and development of the early English North American colonies. This essay examines the impact of profit-oriented business ventures on the founding and evolution of the United States, drawing upon the perspectives offered by the American Yawp. By analyzing the goals, challenges, and consequences of these profit-driven colonies, we can gain
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Despite struggles in the beggining, Jamestown eventually turned a profit through tobacco cultivation. According to the American Yawp, the desire for economic prosperity motivated the colonists to overcome hardships, leading to the rise of an influential plantation society and labor systems that had far-reaching consequences for the future United States.
Chapter II: The Massachusetts Bay Company: Religious Haven and Economic Opportunities
The Massachusetts Bay Company, established in 1620, aimed to provide a refuge for Puritans seeking religious freedom. However, as portrayed by the American Yawp, the company's founders also recognized the economic potential of the New World. They encouraged colonists to engage in trade and commerce, resulting in the growth of a robust commercial economy. The profit-seeking pursuits of the Massachusetts Bay Company not only supported the colony's stability but also made/grew an entrepreneurial spirit that would come to define the American economy.
Chapter III: The Plymouth Colony: Quest for Religious Freedom and Economic
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As they became more prosperous, they desired greater economic and political freedom to fully exploit the opportunities available in the New World. The profit-oriented mindset instilled in these colonies played a significant role in shaping the colonists' views on governance and their resistance to British attempts to curtail their economic activities.
Besides that, the American Yawp also reveals that the economic interests of profit-driven colonies often clashed/rebelled with British policies that basically seeked to extract wealth from the colonies for supposedly the benefit of the mother country.) British regulations and taxation, such as the Navigation Acts and the Stamp Act, directly threatened the profitability of colonial enterprises. This disagreement between economic interests and British control fueled irritation and resistance, eventually leading to the American
THE MARKET ECONOMY IN PORT CITIES During 1740s and 1760s, the port cities along the Northern American continent went through drastic economic changes as new goods became available to the common colonists, and more opportunities came into alive for the merchants and apprentice who possessed the skills to satisfy the increasing demand. Two major groups that benefited greatly from this change in the market economy are the female colonists and the underrepresented slaves and servants. Unlike their counterparts in Europe, slaves and women were engaged in the society as providers of not only skills and labors, but also other commodities, including both legal and illegal ones. Merchants like John Hull, a mint-master of New England, believed that
Further to the effects of famine, economy was also a major problem for New Englanders. Settlers struggled to find economic success through Nova Scotia’s market because it prevented local and poor farmers from making money from what little produce they grew. Successful settlers ran the market and created competition in agricultural surplus.4 Other colonies, like Newfoundland, also created economic and commercial competition for local Nova Scotian farmers and fishers.5 A New England trading group in the West Indies also made economic and trading competition even more aggressive. The commercial and economic rivals hampered Nova Scotia’s economic success creating more poverty and prevented the colonies’
Jamestown was prosperous on tobacco plantations and they had a huge dependence on slavery. Whereas Plymouth was affluent on fishing, trading, and shipbuilding. These differences made both regions successful in their
In the early 1500s, European countries began attempts to expand into the new world, but many of the early settlements failed. The first two colonies to have been successfully established were from England; they were Jamestown, the first inaugurated colony, and Plymouth, the second colony founded by Pilgrims who were searching for religious freedom. There were many ways in which the settlements differed, but the also shared various commonalities that (may have) led to their colonial successes. The settlers of Jamestown and Plymouth were different, having their own ways and ideas as to how they would, together, grow and thrive.
The Virginia Company was assigned land in the New World by the king of England. They had high hopes of making a lot of money by growing and making things in their colony that they could ship back to England for a profit. To do this, they needed a labor force. The Virginia Company advertised for colonists.
The British men gathered full control of the trading center present in the Americas, and created the Navigation Acts to help aid them in their tactics to take control over all trade within the Americas. The Navigation Acts were passed under a mercantilist system, and was used to regulate trade in a way that only benefitted the British economy. These acts restricted trade between England and its colonies to English or colonial ships, required certain colonial goods to pass through England before export, provided subsidies for the production of certain raw goods in the colonies, and banned colonial competition in large-scale manufacturing. This lowered the competition in the trading world for the British and caused the British to have a major surge in power, that greatly attributed to the growth of their rising empire. The British’s ambitious motives in the trading world help portray a way that the British took control of an important piece in the economy of all of the other nations present in the colonies in the time period, and shows another leading factor in the growth of the British empire.
The settling of Chesapeake began in 1606 when King James I commissioned a joint-stock enterprise called the Virginia Company. The Virginia Company was invented to be a religious mission, but shortly after stockholders saw it as a source of gold and other minerals. Other products they saw source of were wine, citrus fruits, and olive oil. Investors promoted colonization so that they would have an opportunity to trade with the Indians. Others saw it as a way to relocate the large growing number of jobless people from Britain to America.
Max Wenzel Dr. Rucker AMH 2010 9/28/17 The Jamestown Colony In the year 1606, the English king James I granted a charter for a British settlement to be established in the new world. Volunteers did not necessarily flood in to venture to this new colony, after all the previous English attempt at colonization led to the 1587 lost colony of Roanoke in which the entire populace disappeared after the British relief effort was delayed to combat the Spanish armada. However, a recently formed joint-stock company known as the "Virgina Company" got a group of roughly 100-150 people to ship over to the new world.
He states that one could sell fish at the market to merchants, do carpentry work, and/or many other skilled trades. (94) However, Smith neglects to go into detail about the economic set up of early colonies. In the beginning, the pilgrims took a communist approach were everyone stock piled what they had and everyone shared (150). Bradford realizing that some worked more than others redirected the pilgrims toward a free market, thus combating greed and negligence.
In actuality, things were not going as well as they appeared, however. This was mainly because of the structure in which the colony was created and built. Massachusetts Colony was built as a safe haven for Puritans, this communal structure dedicated to a single religion actually created some real challenges at they worked to built their new home. In Puritanism as it was practiced in Massachusetts,each person was constantly trying to appear to be more pious then the next, either by actually being so pious and devout, or by simply acting that way in public. This caused many hardships in the business world, an area whose success is very necessary when trying to build up a community from scratch.
This economic policy drove the economy to produce manufactured goods to the mother country. However, rocky soil dominated the New England colonies. Its' cold climate and short growing season barely provided for families to make a subsistent living. Crops provided families and the region with little export value compared with the staple crops of the middle and southern plantations. With little profit growing crops, this drove New England’s economy to
The Massachusetts Bay colony was formed on the idea of having religious freedom and when the colony was already settled the founding governor, John Winthrop, envisioned the colony as a “city upon a hill” that would practice Christian unity and order. Everyone in the colony was to follow
William Braford was governor from 1622-1656, except for five years. The economy of Plymouth was primarily agricultural. Massachusetts Bay was made up of Puritans, and led by John Winthrop. John Winthrop was trained as a lawyer, so his writing style was straightforward, and he recorded events in their entirety with great accuracy. The economy was based on fur trading, fishing, and shipbuilding.
Jamestown brought along the promise of economic fortune with it and drew many settlers there in order to grown cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, which cause for those settlers to become part of joint stock companies such as the Virginia Company. 2. In the royal colony of Virginia, early government was established and maintained by a head right system for land distribution to settlers and a representative group that related back to England called the House of Burgesses, while the other neighboring colonies faced threats such as King Opechancanough’s army of Native Americans. 3.
They needed a lot of money. So they turned to the colonies putting a bunch of taxes on their goods that they shipped over to America. America wasn’t happy about