TRADE IN COLONIAL HISTORY
A shortage of money was a problem for the American colonies. England did not supply its colonies with sufficient coinage and prohibited them from making their own. The early settlers brought coins from Europe but they went quickly back there to pay for supplies. Without enough money, the colonists had to barter for goods or use primitive currency such as Indian wampum, nails and tobacco.
A majority of the residents of Colonial Americans could not read nor write. Women had almost no educational opportunities. The classroom was an empty-looking place with only chalk or pencils and very little paper and no chalkboards. There were never blackboards or maps in colonial schools. To write, the schoolmaster often had to use a stick of charcoal on a piece of birch bark that they pulled off the trees. Whenever the children used pens, they were cut out of goose quills and the schoolmaster made the ink
The Colonial economy depended largely on foreign coins, barter, and commodity money. In 1690, the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued the first Colonial currency. Other colonies soon began to issue their own paper currency. Usually denominated in Spanish Milled Dollars, Colonial notes were also denominated in British shillings, pounds, and pence. In 1764, the British declared Colonial currency illegal.
Colonial settlers came to America for many reasons. Some came for religious freedom. Some came to make money. They settled into 13 colonies, areas that are now the states known as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Georgia, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware. There were other scattered colonies like St. Augustine in what is now known as Florida.