THE CODFISH FRONTIER 273 



from the ruling religious group in England, and were finding 

 it increasingly difficult as well to earn an honest living in the 

 disrupted economy of the mother country. The merchant class 

 in England, wishing a greater trade in Caribbean sugar, Vir- 

 ginia tobacco, and New England codfish, set up stock com- 

 panies to forward the development of colonies. It was these 

 private enterprises that attracted and initially supported the 

 settlers in New England, and that by their nature encouraged 

 the settlers to grow in independence. This was in complete 

 contrast to the state-governed and -supported type of colonial 

 enterprises sponsored by Spain and France. The English com- 

 panies, unfortunately, never made much money in the west, 

 as they did for instance in the East Indies. Colonial trade, 

 all too soon for the profit of the sponsors, began to flourish 

 on its own and free itself from control. The Barbadoes was 

 the first colony to prosper. Slavery brought a sudden source 

 of cheap labor to the sugar plantations, and the exports from 

 the Barbadoes to England, as we saw in an earlier chapter, 

 by 1650 were greater than those of Virginia and larger still 

 than exports from New England. 



But a group of shrewd and independent leaders soon began 

 to put Massachusetts in the running. The strict monopolistic 

 policies of Richelieu in Canada limited the rapid development 

 of French colonies in the north. At his death in 1642 there 

 were only 3,000 Canadians, against 20,000 settlers in Massa- 

 chusetts alone. Toward the end of the century the English 

 had peacefully elbowed the Dutch out of New York and 

 New Jersey. The Dutch had never made serious attempts at 

 colonization in America; they played a successful game of 

 middleman. With superior crews and better-designed vessels 

 they ruled the carrying trade of the Atlantic for many years. 

 To end this the English devised various acts against free trade 

 that were intended to channel American export and import 

 to English vessels and English ports. In return, the British 



