Early American currency - wikipedia Early American currency Obverse and reverse of a three pence note of paper currency issued by the Province of Pennsylvania and printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1764 Early American currency went through several stages of development during the colonial and post-Revolutionary history of the United States. Because few coins were minted in the thirteen colonies that became the United States, foreign coins like the Spanish dollar were widely circulated. Colonial governments sometimes issued paper money to facilitate economic activities. The British Parliament passed Currency Acts in 1751, 1764, and 1773 that regulated colonial paper money. During the American Revolution, the colonies became independent states. Freed from British monetary regulations, they issued paper money to pay for military expenses. The Continental Congress also issued paper money during the Revolution, known as Continental currency, to fund the war effort. Both state and Continental currency depreciated rapidly, becoming practically worthless by the end of the war. This depreciation was caused by the government printing large amounts of currency in order to meet the demands of war. Contents 1 Colonial currency 1.1 Thirteen colony set of United States Colonial currency 2 Continental currency 3 See also 4 References 4.1 Footnotes 5 Bibliography 6 Further reading 7 External links Colonial currency There were three general types of money in the colonies of British America : specie ( coins ), paper money and commodity money. Commodity money was used when cash ( coins and paper money ) was scarce. Commodities such as tobacco, beaver skins, and wampum served as money at various times and places. Cash in the colonies was denominated in pounds, shillings, and pence. The value varied from colony to colony ; a Massachusetts pound, for example, was not equivalent to a Pennsylvania pound. All colonial pounds were of less value than the British pound sterling. The coins in circulation in the colonies were most often of Spanish and Portuguese origin. The prevalence of the Spanish dollar in the colonies led to the money of the United States being denominated in dollars rather than pounds. One by one, colonies began to issue their own paper money to serve as a convenient medium of exchange. In 1690, the Province of Massachusetts Bay created `` the first authorized paper money issued by any government in the Western World. '' This paper money was issued to pay for a military expedition during King William 's War. Other colonies followed the example of Massachusetts Bay by issuing their own paper currency in subsequent military conflicts. The paper bills issued by the colonies were known as `` bills of credit. '' Bills of credit were usually fiat money : they could not be exchanged for a fixed amount of gold or silver coins upon demand. Bills of credit were usually issued by colonial governments to pay debts. The governments would then retire the currency by accepting the bills for payment of taxes. When colonial governments issued too many bills of credit or failed to tax them out of circulation, inflation resulted. This happened especially in New England and the southern colonies, which, unlike the Middle Colonies, were frequently at war. Pennsylvania, however, was responsible in not issuing too much currency and it remains a prime example in history as a successful government - managed monetary system. Pennsylvania 's paper currency, secured by land, was said to have generally maintained its value against gold from 1723 until the Revolution broke out in 1775. This depreciation of colonial currency was harmful to creditors in Great Britain when colonists paid their debts with money that had lost value. The British Parliament passed several Currency Acts to regulate the paper money issued by the colonies. The Currency Act of 1751 restricted the emission of paper money in New England. It allowed the existing bills to be used as legal tender for public debts ( i.e. paying taxes ), but disallowed their use for private debts ( e.g. for paying merchants ). In 1776, British ( Scot ) economist Adam Smith criticized colonial bills of credit in his most famous work, The Wealth of Nations. Another Currency Act, in 1764, extended the restrictions to the colonies south of New England. Unlike the earlier act, this act did not prohibit the colonies in question from issuing paper money but it forbade them to designate their currency as legal tender for public or private debts. That prohibition created tension between the colonies and the mother country and has sometimes been seen as a contributing factor in the coming of the American Revolution. After much lobbying, Parliament amended the act in 1773, permitting the colonies to issue paper currency as legal tender for public debts. Shortly thereafter, some colonies once again began issuing paper money. When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, all of the rebel colonies, soon to be independent states, issued paper money to pay for military expenses. Thirteen colony set of United States colonial currency The Thirteen Colony set of colonial currency below is from the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. Examples were selected based on the notability of the signers, followed by issue date and condition. The initial selection criteria for notability was drawn from a list of currency signers who were also known to have signed the United States Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, or attended the Stamp Act Congress. Complete 13 - colony set of United States Colonial currency Colony Value Date Issue First Note ( obv ) Note ( rev ) Signatures Connecticut 40 s 1775 - 01 - 02 £ 15,000 1709 Elisha Williams, Thomas Seymour, Benjamin Payne Delaware 4 s 1776 - 01 - 01 £ 30,000 1723 John McKinly, Thomas Collins, Boaz Manlove Georgia $40 1778 - 05 - 04 £ 150,000 1735 Charles Kent, William Few, Thomas Netherclift, William O'Bryen, Nehemiah Wade Maryland $1 1770 - 03 - 01 $318,000 1733 John Clapham, Robert Couden Massachusetts 2 s 1741 - 05 - 01 £ 50,000 1690 Robert Choate, Jonathan Hale, John Brown, Edward Eveleth New Hampshire $1 1780 - 04 - 29 $145,000 1709 James McClure, Ephraim Robinson, Joseph Pearson, John Taylor Gilman ( rev ) New Jersey 12 s 1776 - 03 - 25 £ 100,000 1709 Robert Smith, John Hart, John Stevens Jr. New York 2 s 1775 - 08 - 02 £ 2,500 1709 John Cruger Jr., William Waddell North Carolina £ 3 1729 - 11 - 27 £ 40,000 1712 William Downing, John Lovick, Edward Moseley, Cullen Pollock, Thomas Swann Pennsylvania 20 s 1771 - 03 - 20 £ 15,000 1723 Francis Hopkinson, Robert Strettell Jones, William Fisher Rhode Island $1 1780 - 07 - 02 £ 39,000 1710 Caleb Harris, Metcalf Bowler, Jonathan Arnold South Carolina $60 1779 - 02 - 08 $1,000,000 1703 John Scott, John Smyth, Plowden Weston Virginia £ 3 1773 - 03 - 04 £ 36,384 1755 Peyton Randolph, John Blair Jr., Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. ( rev ) Continental currency Continental One Third Dollar Note ( obverse ) A fifty - five dollar Continental issued in 1779 After the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, the Continental Congress began issuing paper money known as Continental currency, or Continentals. Continental currency was denominated in dollars from $ ​ ⁄ to $80, including many odd denominations in between. During the Revolution, Congress issued $241,552,780 in Continental currency. Continental currency depreciated badly during the war, giving rise to the famous phrase `` not worth a continental ''. A primary problem was that monetary policy was not coordinated between Congress and the states, which continued to issue bills of credit. `` Some think that the rebel bills depreciated because people lost confidence in them or because they were not backed by tangible assets, '' writes financial historian Robert E. Wright. `` Not so. There were simply too many of them. '' Congress and the states lacked the will or the means to retire the bills from circulation through taxation or the sale of bonds. Another problem was that the British successfully waged economic warfare by counterfeiting Continentals on a large scale. Benjamin Franklin later wrote : The artists they employed performed so well that immense quantities of these counterfeits which issued from the British government in New York, were circulated among the inhabitants of all the states, before the fraud was detected. This operated significantly in depreciating the whole mass. By the end of 1778, Continentals retained from ​ ⁄ to ​ ⁄ of their face value. By 1780, the bills were worth ​ ⁄ of their face value. Congress attempted to reform the currency by removing the old bills from circulation and issuing new ones, without success. By May 1781, Continentals had become so worthless that they ceased to circulate as money. Franklin noted that the depreciation of the currency had, in effect, acted as a tax to pay for the war. For this reason, some Quakers, whose pacifism did not permit them to pay war taxes, also refused to use Continentals, and at least one Yearly Meeting formally forbade its members to use the notes. In the 1790s, after the ratification of the United States Constitution, Continentals could be exchanged for treasury bonds at 1 % of face value. After the collapse of Continental currency, Congress appointed Robert Morris to be Superintendent of Finance of the United States. Morris advocated the creation of the first financial institution chartered by the United States, the Bank of North America, in 1782. The bank was funded in part by specie loaned to the United States by France. Morris helped finance the final stages of the war by issuing notes in his name, backed by his own money. The Bank of North America also issued notes convertible into specie. Morris also presided over the creation of the first mint operated by the U.S. government, which struck the first coins of the United States, the Nova Constellatio patterns of 1783. The painful experience of the runaway inflation and collapse of the Continental dollar prompted the delegates to the Constitutional Convention to include the gold and silver clause into the United States Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit or `` make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts. '' This restriction of bills of credit was extended to the Federal government, as the power to `` emit bills '' from the Articles of Confederation was abolished, leaving Congress with the power `` to borrow money on credit ''. See also Economic history of the United States Federal Reserve Note History of economic thought History of the United States dollar Monetary policy Money creation United States dollar Hyperinflation References Footnotes Jump up ^ Visually attractive and early examples were digitized and additional signer research was conducted later. Jump up ^ Obverse and reverse images have been prepared separately for table preparation purposes. Some of the notes obverse / reverse are not on the same orientation which would make single images containing both distracting. Jump up ^ Date of the first issue of paper currency for each of the Colonies. Jump up ^ Williams, Seymour, and Payne ( among others ) were appointed to a committee to print and sign currency for the Colony of Connecticut in the amount of 50,000 pounds. Jump up ^ Newman ( 2008 ) indicates the total issue in Pound sterling despite the currency issue in dollars. Jump up ^ O'Bryen, Treasurer of Georgia, was elected to the Continental Congress but did not attend. Jump up ^ Couden served as Mayor of Annapolis from 1785 -- 86 and 1790 -- 91. Jump up ^ Act authorizing Ephraim Robinson and Joseph Pearson to countersign New Hampshire currency. Jump up ^ Waddell was a New York City Alderman ( 1773 -- 77 ) with the authority to sign currency issued to fund the `` water works '' under construction near Broadway and Chambers streets. Jump up ^ Downing served as Speaker of the House of Burgesses from 1735 to 1739. Jump up ^ Lovick was a member of the House of Burgesses. Jump up ^ Pollock was a member of the House of Burgesses. Jump up ^ Swann served as Speaker of the House of Burgesses in 1729. Jump up ^ Hopkinson, Jones, and Fisher authorized to sign Pennsylvania currency. Jump up ^ Act passed June 1780 authorizing Harris and Bowler to sign Rhode Island currency. Jump up ^ Scott, Smyth, and Weston ( among others ) were appointed commissioners with the authority to print and sign one million dollars of South Carolina currency. These references have been removed from EH.Net -- - Jump up ^ Flynn, `` Credit in the Colonial American Economy ''. ^ Jump up to : Michener, `` Money in the American Colonies '' Archived 2010 - 06 - 11 at the Wayback Machine... ^ Jump up to : Newman, 1990, p. 11. ^ Jump up to : Wright, p. 45. Jump up ^ Allen, pp. 96 -- 98. Jump up ^ Allen, p. 98. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, pp. 24 -- 25. Jump up ^ Friedberg & Friedberg, pp. 12 -- 29. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 110. ^ Jump up to : Newman, 2008, p. 89. Jump up ^ Public Records, May, 1775, The public records of the Colony of Connecticut 1636 -- 1776, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 125. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 119. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 151. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 130. Jump up ^ Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 -- 1789, Volume 11, Government Printing Office, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774 -- 2005, Government Printing Office, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 172. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 167. Jump up ^ Robert Couden, Maryland State Archives, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 200. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 183. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 223. Jump up ^ An Act describing the tenor of notes and certificates to be issued by the Treasurer of this state and appointing a committee to counter sign said notes, Laws of New Hampshire : First constitutional period, 1784 -- 1792, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 260. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 247. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 285. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 269. Jump up ^ Colonial And Revolutionary Families Of Pennsylvania, Laws of New Hampshire : First constitutional period, 1784 -- 1792, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 315. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 313. ^ Jump up to : North Carolina State House of Representatives - Past Speakers of the House, Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Letter from George Burrington to the Board of Trade of Great Britain, Documenting the American South, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Minutes of the Upper House of the North Carolina General Assembly, Documenting the American South, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 346. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 331. Jump up ^ The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801, Volume 8, State Printer of Pennsylvania, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 399. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 371. Jump up ^ Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, Alfred Anthony, Printer to the State, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 426. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 405. Jump up ^ An ordinance for the printing, stamping and issuing one million dollars..., Statutes at Large of South Carolina : Acts, 1753 -- 1786, retrieved April 29, 2014 Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 443. Jump up ^ Newman, 2008, p. 437. Jump up ^ Newman, 1990, p. 16. Jump up ^ Newman, 1990, p. 17. Jump up ^ Wright, p. 50. Jump up ^ Wright, p. 49. Jump up ^ Wright, 52 Jump up ^ Kenneth Scot, Counterfeiting in Colonial America ( Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000 ), 259 -- 60. Jump up ^ Wright, p. 49 ; Newman, 1990, 17. Jump up ^ Gross, David M. ( 2014 ). 99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns. Picket Line Press. p. 166. ISBN 978 - 1490572741. Jump up ^ Newman, 1990, p. 17 ; Wright, p. 49. Jump up ^ Wright, p. 62. Jump up ^ Morris Papers, Volume 7, pp. 761 -- 765 Jump up ^ U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 10. Jump up ^ U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 8. Jump up ^ Rozeff, p 18. https://mises.org/books/rozeff_us_constitution_and_money.pdf Flynn, David. `` Credit in the Colonial American Economy ''. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 16, 2008. Michener, Ron. `` Money in the American Colonies ''. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. June 8, 2003. Bibliography Allen, Larry. The Encyclopedia of Money. 2nd edition. Santa Barbara, Calif : ABC - CLIO, 2009. ISBN 978 - 1 - 59884 - 251 - 7. Flynn, David. `` Credit in the Colonial American Economy ''. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 16, 2008. Michener, Ron. `` Money in the American Colonies ''. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. June 8, 2003. Newman, Eric P. The Early Paper Money of America. 3rd edition. Iola, Wisconsin : Krause Publications, 1990. ISBN 0 - 87341 - 120 - X. Newman, Eric P. The Early Paper Money of America. 5th edition. Iola, Wisconsin : Krause Publications, 2008. ISBN 0 - 89689 - 326 - X. Wright, Robert E. One Nation Under Debt : Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe. New York : McGraw - Hill, 2008. ISBN 978 - 0 - 07 - 154393 - 4. Further reading Brock, Leslie V. The currency of the American colonies, 1700 -- 1764 : a study in colonial finance and imperial relations. Dissertations in American economic history. New York : Arno Press, 1975. ISBN 0 - 405 - 07257 - 0. Ernst, Joseph Albert. Money and politics in America, 1755 -- 1775 : a study in the Currency act of 1764 and the political economy of revolution. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1973. ISBN 0 - 8078 - 1217 - X. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Colonial currency and Currency of the American Revolution. Currency Issues to Overcome Depressions in Pennsylvania, 1723 and 1729 Creating the U.S. Dollar Currency Union, 1748 -- 1811 : A Quest for Monetary Stability or a Usurpation of State Sovereignty for Personal Gain ? Obsolete United States currency and coinage Topics United States coinage United States dollar History of the United States dollar Coins Half cent ( 1793 -- 1857 ) Fugio Cent ( 1787 ) Large cent ( 1793 -- 1857 ; 1868 ) Two - cent piece ( 1836 ; 1864 -- 73 ) Three - cent nickel ( 1865 -- 89 ) Three - cent silver ( 1851 -- 73 ) Half dime ( 1792 -- 1873 ) Twenty - cent piece ( 1875 -- 78 ) Gold coins Gold dollar ( 1849 -- 89 ) Quarter eagle ( 1796 -- 1929 ) Three - dollar piece ( 1854 -- 89 ) Half eagle ( 1795 -- 1929 ) Eagle ( 1795 -- 1933 ) Double eagle ( 1850 -- 1933 ) Half - union ( 1877, 1915 ) Patterns Two - cent billon ( 1836 ) Three - cent bronze ( 1863 ) Stella ( 1879 -- 80 ) Currency Discontinued denominations Fractional currency Large denominations of currency Discontinued currency types Early American currency Compound interest treasury note Demand Note Federal Reserve Bank Note Gold certificate Interest bearing note National Bank Note National gold bank note Refunding Certificate Silver certificate Treasury or Coin Note Treasury Note ( 19th century ) United States Note United States postal notes Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Early_American_currency&oldid=853438130 '' Categories : Banknotes of the United States Historical currencies of the United States Financial history of the United States Hidden categories : Webarchive template wayback links Talk Contents About Wikipedia Català Deutsch Español Français Italiano Português Русский Svenska Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 4 August 2018, at 20 : 08 ( UTC ). 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Question: when was paper money first used in the us
Answer: During the American Revolution