Colonies Economic System

1582 Words7 Pages

In general, the Western Hemisphere became a magnet for immigrants and between 1650 and the 1750s, the colonies in America grew in population, there economic system began to flourish and the different cultures that were migrating to the promise land. The United States was viewed as a gold mine for many Europeans and immigrants from all over were looking for opportunity to be free from their government rule and have a chance of prosperity. Therefore, when the opportunity presented itself, they all packed their little belongings they had and sail across to the land of opportunity. The initial settlers found the task to be daunting at times and for them to own build this new country and create the government opposite to what they’ve come from …show more content…

The United States was a tough challenged for many of the new arrivals because the environment was different and the land was less tamed. Therefore, the people of the colonies had to adapt to their new surroundings and learned how to produce items for revenue. In the Chesapeake region, tobacco was the main agriculture in that region and in South Carolina and Georgia they relied on rice production because of the low-lying coastline (Brinkley, 2014, p. 63). Therefore, for the people to develop and maintain this land they had to rely on slaves. Slaves were more prevalent in these areas because African workers were adept at rice cultivation, in part because some of them had come from rice-producing regions and were accustomed to a hotter climate than the Europeans (Brinkley, 2014, p. 64). For the most part, the colonies had some positives and negatives. Significantly, the colonies face a lot of obstacles; the first one was they had no gold or silver, and their paper currency was not acceptable as paying for goods abroad. Secondly, they had lacked information about supply and demand in which the traders didn’t know what the foreign ports were selling or buying (Brinkley, 2014, p. 65). In the compromise, the colonies started trading amongst themselves and the West Indies, which allowed the colonies to grow and prosper (Brinkley, 2014, p. …show more content…

The South economy was ahead of the North so, some white southerners thought of themselves as representatives of a special way of life (Brinkley, 2014, p. 251). Therefore, some believed in that grace and refinement was, more importantly than rapid growth and development of the region (Brinkley, 2014). Furthermore, the image they were displaying was actually the reality of the southern society way of life. In fact, the South started to establish different classes of people depending on your economic status or gender. The southern people in the south that own slaves were known as the Planter Class because only a small minority of southern whites owned slaves (Brinkley, 2014, p.252). The wealthy whites portrayed this image and adopted an elaborate code of “chivalry”, which obligated white men to defend their ‘honor”, often through battle. Furthermore, the white women in south were viewed as much different that of the northern women. The southern white women had prominent roles as northern white women, but they seldom engaged in public activities (Brinkley, 2014, p. 253). The southern white men were very protected of their southern white women in which white men was seen as more dominant than white women and they seem as subordinate than the culture of the white women in the North (Brinkley, 2014, p. 254). Furthermore, this strong view led