Question

President Calvin Coolidge once exclaimed that "the business of the United States IS business." When considering life in the US today, one cannot deny the observation. Even education and prison has become a business industry. The business-oriented nature of the US did not happen overnight and goes back to the very origins of the US. Considering this, (a) explain the origins of the original two colonies, Jamestown and Plymouth. Explain how they fulfilled mercantilist objectives on the part of the English Crown. Also, (b) how did African slavery originate from business purposes? Finally, (c) how was the Civil War a result of economic factors regarding industrialization and slavery?

Answer 1

a)* origin of Jamestown and Plymouth

Traveling aboard the constant, Godspeed and Discovery 104 men landed in Virginia in a place they named Jamestown.lt was the first permanent English settlement in the new world..

Thirteen years later 102 settlers aboard the mayflower landed in Massachusetts at a place they named Plymouth . With these two colonies, English settlements in North America was born .

* How colonies were used to fulfill the mercantilist objectives of the crown.

At first , whar English wanted from America was the expansion of English trade and attainment of a wider market to sell English manufactured products. They were sure of the fact that these establiments meant a promise of gold and will be helpful in paving a way to Asia.

Most of the people who lived in Jamestown were upper-class Englishmen, there for colony lacked farming.sole focus was on trade.In Plymouth, the situation was different as the pilgrims of Plymouth were stimulated by the desire for religious purity eventually Plymouth also faced severe economic exploitation by the British fulfilling their mercantilist aspirations.

2) ln 1610, British captured a Portugese ship hulfilled with captive Africans from Angola and they were taken into point comfort, a port near James town.They were most likely put to work in the tobacco fields that had been recently established in the area.

It was trans- Atlantic slave trade which began as early as the 15th century, which introduced a system of slavery that was commercialised ,racialised and inhereted.

The slaves were seen as a commodity . According to colonial officials , the abundant land they had discovered in the America was useless without sufficient labour to exploit it.so slavery system of labour exploitations were preferred.

More than half of the African captives in America were employed in sugar plantations. Ironically, the profits made from the sale of goods made by captive people in Africa and Europe were used to purchase more slaves.

c) Economic roots of the civilwar reach almost to the beginning of English settlement in North Following are the economic factors that caused the civil war.

* North was economically dominant over the south

Manufacturimg was robust in the North while south fared in agriculture like cotton farming.

* South needed a steady growth in its Economy more than other part because it had a huge army of slaves which was to be provided with food and shelter.

*In response to large-scale dumping of British goods in US after the war of 1812, northern manufacturers pushed for higher and higher tariffs as protection.southern opposition grew slowly at first. But accelerated rapidly after 1820 as tariff duties pushed higher.

* There were disputes over the taxes. Some states resisted taxation by the federation.this was demonstrated concretely when the confideracy came into being that could only collect one percent of taxes.

Even during the war cotton was employed as a political lever. The north erected a naval blockade on south as part of Scott's anaconda strategy , limiting the amount of cotton that could pass through exports then cutting it almost completely toward the end of the civilwar.