While reading American Business History: A Very Short Introduction by Walter A. Friedman, I noticed that the idea of trade was prevalent. Walter speaks on how the English colonizers paved the way of American business through trade. It then slowly created a strong network of Atlantic trade.
Friedman also speaks on the start of joint-stock companies in the United States. When English investors and colonizers failed in Roanoke, they created the idea of a joint-stock company. This idea is also still very popular today. It allows investors to share a risk and reward. If their company was to fail, they would not suffer as big of a loss as to if they were to start a company on their own. Some of them were successful and lasted centuries and others failed.
Friedman mentioned how the Hudson Bay Company that was established in 1670 entered the fur trade and that this company is still successfully operating today. I think it’s impressive how far along that companies like this have gone. It’s been through times when technology was not refined and now it’s in an era where technology is only going to get better.
Colonies like Virginia grew cash crops to survive. According to Friedman, in 1615, Virginia exported 2,300 pounds of tobacco and that number grew tenfold by 1617. Because of a drop in Native American populations and indentured servitude, tobacco growers turned to growing the transatlantic slave trade. Dutch traders brought the first documented slaves from Africa to Virginia. This shows how trade really transforms many aspects of business and survival.
Other areas like Massachusetts did not have Virginia’s climate for growing crops like tobacco, so they turned to other resources to create their own goods for trade and business. They pursued business in furs and salted fish. They also had a lot of wood for ships to transport their goods to the market. Shipbuilding soon became Massachusetts industry. I learned that the salted fish that New England produced helped feed the slave population in Barbados. Thus, indirectly linking them to the slave trade, as well.
Friedman really showed me how it really is human instinct to learn to survive and adapt to the situation they are in and how trade was a big part of how the colonizers adapted and survived in the Americas.
A good overview of the Friedman chapter, and you draw a nice conclusion about the importance of human adaptability and the desire to trade. But at other times your conclusions are vague—how did the advent of slavery in Virginia show “how trade transforms many aspects of business and survival”? What did the networks of Atlantic trade look like, how did they function? Is it safe to assume that technology will only get better, as it seemed to many during the nineteenth century? Or does technology often have disruptive or even destructive effects, as it appeared to many skilled workers in textiles and other crafts, who were thrown out of work or found themselves de-skilled and working with machines for low wages in factories?