Colonial Societies were organized to answer three fundamental economic questions:

• What goods and services are produced?

• How did the colonists produce them?

• For whom did they produce them?

In early NY history, mainly under Dutch influence, many farm goods were produced on the manors.   The manors were unique because here the workers both lived and produced what they needed to survive.  The owner may well have not lived on the manor; he may have lived in New York City and hired someone to oversee the manor and its people.

Philipse Manor Hall
Unknown Artist "D.R."
Probably New York, post 1783
Ink wash on paper

The goods produced were not unlike the goods produced on today's farms:  cows for milk and beef, sheep for wool and  meat.  They also farmed wheat, oats, and corn and ground them for flour in the manor's own mill.  They grew fruit in the orchards. They also may have harvested trees and sawed it in their own sawmill.  

When the Dutch were forced out, the British were then the large landowners and continued the tenant farmer system.  Some of the very large manors had about 220 tenant families living on them. Some tenant families stayed on the same land for many years.  Children would take over the same farm their parents had worked.

The  manors and tenant farmers were important to the colonial societies.  They produced what they needed for the most part.  They lived within their own manor.  They were self-sufficient.

WHAT GOODS WERE PRODUCED

For those that did not live on a manor, they needed to buy goods made by others. The goods bought were in two large categories: food and making items necessary to live.  No cotton was grown in New York, but they did produce lots of other food items: corn, wheat, oats, fruit, dairy products, and meat from beef, pigs, and sheep.  Most of the farming was done along the Hudson River and on Long Island in its earliest history, and later on in all parts of Upstate New York.

Because New Yorkers had one of the largest early cities (New York City) they also produced many products from the artisans.  Such items included goods made from silver, wood, tin, iron, and fabric.

HOW GOODS WERE PRODUCED

Workers were needed for the colony, and they had to come from other countries.  Pamphlets were written in England to encourage servants and the poor to emigrate to the New World.  The workers were divided by how much money they had to get over here:  as slaves, as indentured servants, or as free people.  

• The free people were able to pay their own passage to America.  They were probably not wealthy, but had enough money leftover from family fortunes or from selling all their belongings to pay their own way here.  They became shop owners, merchants, farmers, or artisans.

• The slaves came over from Africa, and for the most part were forced on a ship against their will, with no money.  When they got here, they were sold as slaves and remained in slavery until slavery was totally abolished in New York State as of July 4, 1827.  Their needs were totally taken care of by their master in return for doing anything the master pleased.  They were Black.

• The indentured servants were, in some ways half slave/  half free.  They were not free, but they also were not slaves. They did not have enough money to buy passage on the boat here.  They could be either  Black or White.  They owed probably 4 to 7 years of their lives to their "owners" in return for their ticket for the trip from Europe to America.  While in servitude,  they owed their "owner" anything the "owner" requested.  They were usually manual laborers on the large farms or in shops.  After their term (up to 7 years) they were free to leave their master, and that master was required to provide his former servant with the following: clothing, two hoes, three barrels of corn, and fifty acres of land.

FOR WHOM WERE THE GOODS PRODUCED

Most goods produced were used within the colony.  Some were traded to Europe, but  overseas trading was not one of the colonists' biggest jobs.

 DEFINITIONS

manor: a large piece of land that the owner rents in smaller plots to a number of farmers.

tenant farmers: workers on a manor who did not own it, but paid  the owner part of what was produced on the farm in return for use of the land.

self-sufficient: provides as much as needed for yourself, do not have to rely on anybody else for your needs.

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