Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community — John Shaqi
Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island CommunityWells, David Ames
General
Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community
Wells, David Ames
Currency question -- United States; Money
Unfortunately for the success of Governor Kieft's scheme, the
Yankees on Connecticut River soon found that they could make wampum
in any quantity, with little labor and cost, out of oyster-shells, and
accordingly made haste to supply all the wampum that the wants of trade
in New Amsterdam required; buying with it every thing that was offered,
and paying the worthy Dutchmen their own price. Governor Kieft's money,
it is to be further noticed, had also in perfection that most essential
attribute of all good money, "non-exportability." Accordingly,
when the Dutchmen wanted any tin pans or wooden bowls of Yankee
manufacture, they had to pay for them in substantial guilders, or
other sound metallic currency; wampum being no more acceptable to
the Yankees in exchange than addled eggs, rancid butter, rusty pork,
rotten potatoes, or any other non-exportable Dutch commodity. [5]
The result of all this was, that in a little time the Dutchmen and
the Indians got all the wampum, and the Yankees all the beaver-skins,
Dutch herrings, Dutch cheeses, and all the silver and gold of the
province. Then, as might naturally have been expected, confidence
became impaired. Trade also came to a stand-still, and, to quote from
the old manuscript records, "the company is defrauded of her revenues,
and the merchants disappointed in making returns with which they
might wish to meet their engagements." It is safe to conclude that,
after this, the commodity made use of by the Dutchmen as money was
something less liable to have its value impaired than wampum.
The early settlers in East Tennessee also came to a similar conclusion,
after a somewhat similar experience. Raccoon-skins were in demand for
various purposes, and consequently were valuable. They accordingly
selected them for use as money. Opossum-skins, on the other hand, were
not in demand, and therefore had little value. Those of the settlers
who desired to discharge their obligations without giving a full
equivalent paid their taxes in opossum-skins to which coons' tails
were attached. The counterfeits having once got into the treasury,
could not be exported out of the treasury to meet the payments of
the State, and the use of coon-skins as currency came to an end.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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