English Economic Influence on Boston
In the 1700s, the colonies’ interactions with England simultaneously developed their economy and began to separate them from the empire’s influence. As the century progressed, artisans from the shipbuilding industry in England arrived in the United States, and colonial purchasing power soared above that of the mother country.1,2 In addition, increasing competition between England and her colonies furthered the economic separation between the regions. Although the Navigation Acts passed by Parliament helped the English shipbuilding industry to recover, they also promoted the growth of the North American construction of vessels which began to compete with the former as early as 1724.3,4 Indeed, by 1730, one-sixth of English merchant ships were built in the colonies.5 Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that in the absence of competition with the motherland, the United States would have become an entirely different nation.
- Steven J. J. Pitt, "Building and Outfitting Ships in Colonial Boston", Early American Studies 13, no. 4 (Fall 2015): 888, accessed March 5, 2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44630808.
- Peter H. Lindert and Jeffery G. Williamson, "American Colonial Incomes", Economic History Review 69, no. 1 (Febuary 2016): 70, accessed March 5, 2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43910400.
- Y. Eyüp Özveren, "Shipbuilding, 1590-1790", Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 23, no. 1 (2000): 44, accessed April 15, 2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40241478.
- Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty!: An American History, ed. Steve Forman (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2019), 74.
- Y. Eyüp Özveren, "Shipbuilding, 1590-1790", Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 23, no. 1 (2000): 45, accessed April 15, 2022, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40241478.