1. The Colonial Economy Main Idea
A commerce-based economy developed in the northern colonies, while the southern colonies developed an agricultural economy.
Reading Focus
What were the characteristics of northern colonial economies?
What were the characteristics of southern colonial economies?
What was the impact of slavery in the colonies?

3. Colonial Economies Agriculture was the main economic activity
Farming in New England
Soil was thin and rocky; growing season short.
Subsistence farming – growing enough food for their own family. Some raised extra for trade
Rarely enough to export
Farming in middle colonies - German colonists (Pennsylvania Dutch) Used fertilizer and crop rotation, women worked in the fields too
Farming in the South – Better land & climate. Grew for sale; raised cattle and hogs for export

4. Northern Colonial Economies
Natural resources
When fur trade declined, colonists turned to timber & fish.
Due to Navigation Acts, coastal towns were centers for shipbuilding.
Fish
Some fish exported to Europe & West Indies. In early 1700s whaling industry began in N.E. Whale products: lamp oil and materials used in perfumes, candles, and women’s corsets

5. Northern Colonial Economies
Colonial industries
English goods were expensive, so colonists made things at home. Small industries developed:
Mills run by water - ground grain into flour
Distilleries – alcoholic beverage were major businesses
Ironworks, bricks, leather goods, glass and cloth

6. Northern Colonial Economies
Trade and commerce
Good harbors, inexpensive ships encouraged development of commerce.
Port cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were thriving centers of trade.

7. Southern Economy Cash crops - products grown to be sold
Triangular trade – trade routes that linked the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the West Indies
Middle Passage –journey enslaved Africans made from West Africa across Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies.
Cash crops - products grown to be sold
tobacco, indigo (used to make blue dye), rice
rope, tar, and turpentine used in shipbuilding

8. South Colonial Economies
Plantation system
Planters – wealthy, dominated society & politics.
Plantations - hundreds of workers, indentured servants or slaves
Most worked in the fields, some performed other tasks, such as shoemaking, weaving, and carpentry.

9. Southern Colonial Economy
Small Farms
Most farms had fewer than 30 workers
Slaves worked alongside farmers.
Independent yeoman farmers
livestock
corn, wheat, fruit, & vegetables for home market
tobacco, sold it through large planters

12. The Impact of Slavery African Slave Trade Olaudah Equiano
By the 1600s Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, and England were involved in trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Most captured Africans were taken to colonies in the Caribbean and South America, then to North America.
The Middle Passage was a horrifying experience where men, women, and children were packed in the ships
African Slave Trade
Former slave who wrote a book about his life in slavery
His description of the Middle Passage horrors encouraged readers to call for the end of slavery.
Olaudah Equiano

13. The Impact of Slavery Reasons slavery continued:
English considered themselves superior
Cost less and easier to obtain than indentured servants
Slaves’ children - next generation of workers
Resisting slavery
Many slaves used physical resistance, sabotage, or ran away.
Stono Rebellion: In 1739, 100 enslaved Africans in South Carolina took weapons from a firearms shop and killed several people.
Some skilled artisans bought their freedom by hiring out their labor.