SETTLING NORTH AMERICA 1497 1732
FOUNDING OF THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES
Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Fishing
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Ship Building
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Whale Oil
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None of the above
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Detailed explanation-1: -The New England colonies had rocky soil, which was not suited to plantation farming, so the New England colonies depended on fishing, lumbering, and subsistence farming. The Middle colonies also featured mixed economies, including farming and merchant shipping.
Detailed explanation-2: -Not only were oil and baleen early used as commodities of trade; once the beaver pelts and furs of the New England hinterland were exhausted, whale oil alone emerged to take their place as the foremost source of sterling earned in direct trade with England.
Detailed explanation-3: -Whale oil was used chiefly for illumination (and later in time, for a variety of manufacturing purposes). Oil even served as a currency; local schoolteachers were paid in whale oil. For the next twenty years, colonists worked to perfect this trade.
Detailed explanation-4: -New England’s economy was largely dependent on the ocean. Fishing (especially codfish) was most important to the New England economy, though whaling, trapping, shipbuilding, and logging were important also.