![]() ![]() Specifically, they used wampum, shells of the clam Venus mercenaria and its relatives, strung onto pendants. Instead, they used the most appropriate money to be found in their environment – durable skeleton parts of their prey. Worse, the New England natives used neither silver nor gold. American Indians had been using money for millennia, and quite useful money it turned out to be for the newly arrived Europeans – despite the prejudice among some that only metal with the faces of their political leaders stamped on it constituted real money. The natives had money, but it was very different from the money Europeans were used to. The colonists' solution was at hand, but it took a few years for them to recognize it. The investors and the Crown much preferred this to paying in coin what the farmers might ask, letting the farmers themselves buy the supplies – and, heaven forbid, keep some of the profit as well. ![]() In effect, early colonists were supposed to both work for the company and shop at the company store. Evolution, Cooperation, and Collectiblesįrom the very start, England's 17th century colonies in America had a problem – a shortage of coins The British idea was to grow large amounts of tobacco, cut timber for the ships of their global navy and merchant marine, and so forth, sending in return the supplies they felt were needed to keep the Americans working.These precursors shared with non-fiat currencies very specific characteristics – they were not merely symbolic or decorative objects. The precursors of money, along with language, enabled early modern humans to solve problems of cooperation that other animals cannot – including problems of reciprocal altruism, kin altruism, and the mitigation of aggression. ![]()
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