Edmond Moran Quotes
I am sure that it will never be worth any English Trader's while to follow this Trade unless the French are prohibited to come here
The French had a much different agenda in the new world than the British who wanted to create residential colonies. The French were more interested in trade—not in establishing permanent colonies. The result was that the French were in many ways better trading partners for the Indians than the English. They came without women, intermarried among the Indians and learned the languages; they did not contest for land, and they paid the Indians more for pelts and furs than the English were willing to. At the same time they exacerbated conflicts with the colonists, and encouraged Indian attacks on settlers as that kept competition out. They were not above giving Indians alcohol and encouraging them to rob the furs and/or kill their English competitors. So on two levels, they had to be removed. See the military view of Robert Rogers: {614122}.
Edmond Moran, *, Colonial Trader, Letter from Green Bay
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
North was none-the-less in favor of allowing interest rates be much higher, but was stating the best argument, believed at the time by most English experts, and many American economists today.
Shortly thereafter, India started to reduce the protectionism.
The Indian allies of the French scalped some American colonists which for some whites was akin to the modern reaction to terrorist atrocities. The British and Americans then justified the scalping of their Indian allies as simple retaliation. While Indians had scalped before the whites ever came, the whites accelerated the practice. There was an economic element to scalping. The French “paid” their Indian allies in arms, blankets, trinkets and alcohol by the scalp as it was a crude way of “performance measurement.” Not to be outdone, the English adopted the same custom with the French allied Indians as targets. In North Carolina, for example, the “volunteer” rangers were paid the enormous rate of 10 pounds a scalp.
As absurd as it seems to us today, traders were not very high in the English social order. Business itself was not well respected. English governing councils were devoid of anyone who had trade of business experience. Holland, in contrast, perhaps went to the other extreme in that traders and business men dominated to political structure. The Dutch were much more successful in foreign trade relatively than the English.
This quotation illustrates two important points. First, that foreign and domestic trade and merchants were very much appreciated at the time and an important component of society that there were special protections for traders and merchants. Second, was the national preemption of jurisdiction and control over business and commerce that would enter and leave the city. On most matters the local authorities would handle things, but intercity and international commerce was historically continuously impaired by individual nobles and other authorities making rules affecting merchants who might come to their town or city. The Crown preempted this authority in the 13th century and the “Commerce Clause” of our Constitution was not an unusual concept and had an extensive legal and economic history.
This was an expression of concern from the merchants of Rhode Island to England regarding curtailing aspects of the slave trade. Ironically, this Remonstrance is one of the first documents objecting to the management of America’s affairs by England when America had no representation. Therefore it played a part in the process which culminated in the American Revolution and freedom from England. And yet the subject was not freedom at all but just the opposite—the prerogative of maintaining the slave trade. Note that the appeal to the Board of Trade was not couched in ethical or political argument but as a mercantile argument—Rhode Islander’s would import less British goods.
Turgot was one of the most advanced economic thinkers in Europe and realized, even before most of the Americans, that by freeing itself England, that the Americans would be forced to become free traders and that in turn would make America a major Economic power despite the fact that American economic policy over the years vacillated between protectionism and free trade.
Most businesses attempt to gain monopolistic positions and avoid price and other competition as much as possible. See {633636} .
There was, well before the American Revolution, a restriction on the importation of British goods into the American colonies. Partially this was to pressure Parliament to stop some of its most repressive lawmaking. But it also supported what had become a very lucrative protectionist monopoly of large American merchants. See {636861}.
This was one of the first and is considered the best of the Colonial arguments against taxation without representation. The argument here about exports also affected other commodities—see {636866}. Despite this, Dulany is not well known in American history because when the Revolution finally came he was a loyalist.
The profits that England made on the North American Colonies and the Caribbean were very large. 10 years before the American Revolution most sophisticated English politicians realized that and one of the reasons the British fought so hard to keep America from Independence was that money.
2nd Earl of Guilford. This bill cut off all trade with the American Colonies. It was meant as pressure to cease the rebellion. It did not work.
He was only referring to the English ships. In addition there were French and German ships plying the Africa trade.
At the time, Republicans were the protectionists and Democrats were free traders—the reverse of the party roles at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st.
The French had launched a sneak attack on the English settlement at Schenectady, NY. The English had not provided enough security to Schenectady and now considered withdrawing from the upstate area. Contrary to the popular conception of all the Indians being invaded by the Whites and fighting it, here these Indians were urging the English to hang on and stay in the area. The Mohawk were one of the tribes of the Iroquois confederation which were very sophisticated, somewhat democratice, and very powerful economically and militarily. To them, the English were good trading partners and unlike the French tended to conform with Iroquis norms, rules and mores. It also illustrated the closeness of the alliance of these Indians with the English against the French in the French & Indian Wars.
Clinton was a founder of the society and considered an excellent historian. When giving this presentation he had documentation and academic references for each of the statements.
