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Experiences in the new world
The first European settlers in America quickly learned that they had to adapt or starve. During the winter of 1609 to 1610,Native Americans taught the survivors how to grow corn, pumpkin and squash -
Indentured servants in Colonial Virginia
In 1619, the first African slaves were brought to Virginia from West Central Africa, slaves were brought to America to plant and harvest on the plantations -
Agriculture in early America
The arrival of the English continued the diseases and decimation of American. English trade with the natives lured them into dependence on the European fur market for European goods, As the fire regimes and agricultural systems gradually eroded, the appearance of the land began to change. Uncontrolled vegetation began to form an unbroken shroud. The extensive canelands witnessed by English settlers as they pushed inland were signs that the thousands-of-years-old fire ecosystems -
Farm Equipment
In the early 1700s agricultural technology consisted of oxen and horses for power, crude wooden plows, all sowing by hand, cultivating by hoe, hay and grain cutting with a sickle and threshing with a flail Farming technology had advanced from hand tools to farming equipment that used horses and steam power. These innovations along with indentured servant labor and African slaves increased farm productivity. -
Agriculture in Virginia
Tobacco was the important money crop, and almost every ship that sailed from a plantation wharf carried tobacco. Many other commodities too, were shipped to the mother country as well as to New England, the middle colonies, Barbados, Madeira, Bermuda, and Jamaica. Exports from one Virginia shipping district Porth South Potomac staves, timber, corn, wheat, peas, beans, masts, pig iron, feathers, pork, cotton, earthenware parcels, and many more -
Parliamentary Acts
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, England adopted a series of laws known as “Parliamentary Acts.” These laws regulated trade from the American colonies by requiring that goods exported to England be sent on British ships. One section of these laws, the Navigation Acts, required that the colonies transport their most expensive products back to England and pay costly import taxes for this right. The Navigation Acts also restricted other exports from the colonies. -
Stamp act
March 1765, British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, the first direct tax on the American colonies, which included taxation on printed documents, newspapers, dice, and playing cards -
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence resulted partly from British controls on farm exports, restrictions on land titles, and limitations on western settlement -
A Revolution in the Country
Early Americans were self-sufficient; 93% of them were farmers and free land, rich soil, and a temperate climate helped them do well. Farmers began to use horsepower to pull newly invented farm implements like the broadcast seeder and the mechanized grain reaper. These implements improved working conditions for farmers and provided more cash. I -
Shay's Rebellion
A farmers' revolt against high taxes and deflation in western Massachusetts, demonstrated the general resentment from the economic crisis that followed the American Revolution. -
Potash
On July 31, 1790 Samuel Hopkins was issued the first patent for a process of making potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer. The patent was signed by President George Washington. Hopkins was born in Vermont, but was living in Philadelphia, Pa. when the patent was granted. Potash, or potassium, is the third major plant and crop nutrient after nitrogen and phosphorus. It has been used since antiquity as a soil fertilizer -
The Public Land Act
Until 1776, the much of the land west of the Mississippi River was owned by Spain. The Public Land Act opened uncontested "western lands and territories" to those who would settle and expand the United States in these outlying areas.
