or any other worthless material. “This consideration, however, had no weight with Governor Kieft. He began by paying all the servants of the company, and all the debts of the Government, in strings of wampum. He sent emissaries to sweep the shores of Long Island, which was the Ophir of this modern Solomon, and abounded in shell-fish. These were transported in loads to New Amsterdam, coined into Indian money, and launched into circulation.”
“And now for a time affairs went on swimmingly. Money became as plentiful as in the modern days of paper currency, and, to use a popular phrase, ‘a wonderful impulse was given to public prosperity.’”
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.
But to return to the island. Although the first experience of the islanders in selecting a commodity to be used as money had been particularly unfortunate, the necessity of having some agency to serve the purpose of money remained as great as before, and consequently a new commodity had to be selected. Various people proposed various things. Some proposed to use bananas, which were always desirable, and, when good and ripe, were always exchangeable at a very constant value; but their unfitness to be used as money was acknowledged as soon as it was pointed out that bananas decayed very quickly after they became most useful, and that therefore a man who had plenty of money to-day might have none tomorrow, and that through no fault of his own.6 Wheat, cattle, and pieces of stamped iron were also proposed, but all of these were found to be unsuitable in some essential particular. Thus, for example, it was objected to wheat, that, though it was almost always in demand, and represented a very constant amount of labor for its production, it was too bulky to carry about, and rarely had the same exact value one year as another; to cattle, that it was impossible to divide up an ox, cutting off the tail at one time and the ears at another, for the purpose of making change, without destroying the value of the animal as a whole; and that if cows in general were to be used as legal tender to pay debts, the very poorest cow would very probably be selected from the money-pen for such a purpose;7 while, if iron were adopted as money, and circulated at its current value, it might be necessary to move about a ton to pay a debt of twenty or thirty dollars.
A peculiar kind of beads, made of blue glass, had come into use with the women on the island as ornaments, and being greatly in demand, small in bulk, and of most durable material, they were thought to be peculiarly well fitted to serve the purpose of money. They were accordingly adopted, and for a time fairly answered the purpose. But all at once the women declared their continued use to be unfashionable; and all use and demand for the beads at once ceasing, the merchants and others who had accumulated a large stock of them, in exchange for other commodities, at the same moment found that what they had regarded as money had no longer any purchasing power or value, and in consequence experienced great losses. Thereupon the community concluded not to use blue glass beads any longer as money.8
How fast the people on the island, by reason of their varied experience, educated themselves up to a knowledge of what constitutes good money may be inferred from the following incident:
A portion of the inhabitants on the island were heathen, and, to defray the expense of efforts to civilize and Christianize them, it was the habit of certain good men to take advantage of the assembling of the people from time to time to solicit and receive contributions for such objects. It was observed, however, on such occasions that some persons, either through ignorance of what constitutes money, or by reason of great poverty, were in the habit of depositing commodities in the hat which were not money; and the practice having been brought to the attention of Robinson Crusoe (who generally presided at such meetings), he is reported to have administered rebuke and instruction in the following impressive manner:
“Before proceeding to take up our regular contribution for the heathen,” he said, “I would suggest to the congregation—and more especially to those who sit in the gallery—that the practice of putting into the hat commodities which are not money, more especially buttons, shows a degree of ignorance respecting the uses of money on the part of some in this community which I had not supposed possible, after all our recent and varied experience on this subject. But if, through ignorance or impecuniosity, any should feel obliged to continue to contribute buttons in the place of money, I would request that they do not stamp down or break off the eyes; inasmuch, as while by so doing they utterly destroy the utility of these commodities as buttons, and do not increase their desirability as money, they also utterly fail to deceive the heathen; who, although ignorant of the Gospel, and not using buttons for any purpose, are nevertheless, as a general thing, good judges of currency.”
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