Economy in Colonial New York
In New York, all they cared about was money. If they didn't have money, they could not develop. The British wanted to be in control of all the economics, so instead of religious practices or education they mainly focused on jobs and money. A huge part of the New York economy was fur trading at Fort Orange. This possibly created problems because if they were not exporting more than they were importing then it was a waste of time. British were always thinking of ways to make more money such as bring Eastern Slaves, and Servants on a contract. These contracts stated if a wealthy homeowner brought in a person from another country then that person would have to work and pay off their voyage. Many people thought it was a fair trade but some of them died on the trips over. It was long, and the people were almost always hungry.
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Another major part of New York economy was ship building. Since the land was new and untouched, people had plenty of raw materials, such as wood stone and food. The biggest material was wood. They would make huge ships to sell, or bring slaves on. Shipbuilding was a common job back then because it took and abundant amount of people to make this happen. They would export these ships and make huge money. With this money the British would extend the land and make more farms, whether they were crop farms or tree farms. Fishing was more popular than farming because all the good soil was down south, and all the good sized fish were North. There were a good amount of jobs to do around New York to how it got today. No one was focused on just one project. Huge amounts of money was made, and new York attracted a lot of settlers.
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