ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
...ions of Europe. “After 1777 there was little lack of foreign merchandise” (Forman 82). Industry was, perhaps, even more affected than agriculture. “The nonimportation agreements before the war and British blockade during the struggle stimulated domestic manufacturing, forcing even the wealthy to use American-made goods” (Faulkner 105). The Revolutionary War profited some individuals, but caused grievous loss to others like the Whale Oil and Candle Business. British blockades ruined these two businesses and brought the fishing industry almost up to a standstill. “Some industries, as shipbuilding, were adversely affected, but there can be no doubt that the war, even in this primitive agricultural society, gave a distinct impetus to manufacturing” (Freidel 165). The Revolution not only removed the political domination of Great Britain but also enabled the colonies to throw off a great burden of economic disabilities and to shake themselves free from a mass of feudal barbarities, legal walls, and social customs inherited and artificially imposed from without (Hart 216). Tories were denounced and deprived of citizenship under the new state constitutions; they had no legal redress for their troubles. Laws forced them to pay for a cause they hated and at the same time, “denied them liberty to speak or write their opinions”(Hart 28). Whoever was loyal to the patriot, tarring and feathering, imprisonment, banishment the appropriation of property, or death would await their fate (Faulkner 128). Millions of pounds worth of Tory property was confiscated, and 70,000 to 100,000 Tories went into exile (Perkins/Van Duesen 174). The rise of the American banking began with the organization of the Bank of North America, established in 1782 as an aid to the war effort. Two years later, the Bank of New York was created. “The chartering of eleven banking and business corporations between 1781 and 1785 began a development of the corporate form of business activity, which was to become a vital part of American economic life” (Perkins/Van Deusen 174). Hamilton, who proposed the national bank idea, wanted to fix the United States debt problems. “Southerners were complaining that they already paid their states’ debts and didn’t want to pay other states’ debts after they had paid off their own. These debts were money owed from the American Revolution” (Nash 50). As a major st...