Economic History of The United States - Pre-colonial

Pre-colonial

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, sailing under the Spanish flag, set out to find Asia and happened upon a "New World". For the next 100 years, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English and French explorers sailed from Europe for the New World, looking for gold, riches, religious merit, honor, and imperial power. But north of Mexico there was little glory and less gold, so most did not stay. The people who eventually did settle arrived later. In 1565 a small fort at St. Augustine, Florida, was founded by the Spanish, and in 1607 a small band of settlers built England's first permanent settlement in what was to become the United States at Jamestown. While they traded among themselves, Native Americans lacked immunities when European explorers began arriving after 1492, bringing new microbes. Their economic systems, for example the economy of the Iroquois, involved various combinations of hunting and gathering and farming. Native American economies were profoundly altered by the arrival of Europeans and the resulting arrival of new diseases, influx of European goods, business relations with the Europeans regarding the fur trade, acquisition of horses, firearms and alcohol, engagement in wars, loss of land, and confinement to reservations.