Prefaces to sets of essays, such as this one, are often devoted to explaining why publication was delayed or why certain planned essays are missing from the completed book. This Preface is an exception. All of the authors met their deadlines — or near to — and they produced a very close approximation to the volume that the editors had imagined when they laid out their original plans. These plans did not imply, however, that all authors would agree on the interpretation of specific events and patterns of change. Rather, aware of the present state of historical knowledge and the disagreements among scholars, we expected that some differences across chapters would appear, and, in that expectation, we were not disappointed.

Two moderately unusual ideas informed our original plans for the series. While the volumes were to be concerned chiefly with the United States, we decided that the American story could not be properly told unless some attention were given to other parts of British North America. Specifically, we thought that the volumes must contain essays on Canada and the British West Indies, the latter at least down to the time of emancipation. Second, we thought that the first volume should begin by treating the prior economic histories of the societies that came together during the colonial period - the societies of Native Americans present in North America before Columbus, of Africans who were involved in trade with Europeans, including the slave trade, and of Europeans.

This volume surveys the economic history of British North America, including Canada and the Caribbean, and of the early United States, from early settlement by Europeans to the end of the eighteenth century. The book includes chapters on the economic history of Native Americans (to 1860), and also on the European and African backgrounds to colonization. Subsequent chapters cover the settlement and growth of the colonies; British mercantilist policies and the American colonies; and the American Revolution, the Constitution, and economic developments through 1800.