Q &A: US Business History

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Dear student,
Hello once again and thank you for using Brainmass. Since you did not indicate the text you are using for this class, I cannot assure you that the answers below will be course-specific. They are however general knowledge and should get you started. As requested, they are also short and concise. Each numbered answer corresponds to the questions in your original posting. If you need room to expand on the information provided, the references are listed. Good luck!

Sincerely,
OTA 105878/Xenia Jones
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Q&A: American Colonial Economy

1. Modern characteristics of the colonial economy that paved way for what is now rooted American economic cultural behavior has structural, psychological and economic effects on how then Colonial America shaped itself. First off, colonial economy was export driven. The colonies were territories meant for production and farms and then industries profited from an export of goods. Internally, trade was also in place creating a dynamic market economy where finance and credit was made available by financiers and investors in the hopes of chasing in on gains via growth on whatever business proposition they enter (i.e. shipping & import/export, farms and plantation for most sought after crops, slavery, etc.). What the colonials sought for then is self-sufficiency and growth via free trade, and this still rings true in the America we know today even if perspectives, laws and the social landscape have changed.

2. Labor shortage in the colonies was brought about by a number of factors. There was just so much to do with labor that is affordable in terms of making a profit unavailable. In short, there wasn't much labor available among the settlers, extra labor, to help make their plots and plantations profitable much less to build towns, maintain settlements, man ships, etc. This was made worse by the difficulty of adapting to the new environment. Disease at times decimated populations and ...