THE HISTORY OF FIAT MONEY AND CURRENCY INFLATION IN NEW ENGLAND FROM 1620 TO 1789.
The scarcity of money was a vexatious problem with the American colonists from the beginning. The tax-gatherers[1] and tradesmen experienced much trouble and delay in making collections. Importations from England of implements of production[2] were, at the outset, necessarily proportionate to the wealth of the community. Peltry[3] and fish,[4] which were marketed here in abundance, settled balances abroad for a time. But the demands, as in every new country, were in excess of those products available for export, hence there was a deficit in London payable in English bills or specie. The specie of the colony was for the most part absorbed by the tradesmen in the course of business and was promptly shipped to London where the accounts of the Massachusetts merchants were at that time constantly in arrears.[5]
The colonial treasury received very little coin, and the amount lessened every year proportionately to the assessed valuation.[6] Live stock and produce were received by the Massachusetts treasury at an early date. Horses, cattle and
- ↑ Massachusetts Records, Vol. iv, Pt. I, 247.
- ↑ Massachusetts Historical Collections, Vol. iii, p. 129. Governor Bradford's "History of Plymouth Plantation," p. 356.
- ↑ "Wonder-Working Providence," by Johnson, p. 199. Governor Bradford, op. cit., pp. 104, 108, 127, 204; Massachusetts Colonial Records, Vol. i, pp. 1, 81, 386. Force Tracts, i, p. 6; New Hampshire Provincial Papers, Vol. i, p. 71. Winthrop's "History of New England," Vol. i, p. 43.
- ↑ "Pathway to Erect a Plantation." Winthrop, op. cit., Vol. i, p. 139. See W. B. Weeden's "Economic and Social History of New England," Vol. i, p. 129. A contrast of fisheries and furs. He says, "One partook of the departing barbarism, the other was a sure harbinger of the incoming civilization." Again, p. 18, he says, "Fish from the seas was the chief motor in starting the round of exchange."
- ↑ Massachusetts Colonial Records, Vol. iv, Pt. I, p. 198; Hull's "Diaries," pp. 179, 180, 190.
- ↑ Massachusetts Archives—"Pecuniary," Vol. i.
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