Economy

The central economic commerce was the Dutch and Indian fur trade through Fort Orange, now Albany. After the English takeover in 1664, the Dutch traders in Albany continued to dominate the inland northern fur trade, expanding to a provincial trading post at Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario in 1727. Foodstuffs, especially grain, became the major exports for the remainder of the colonial period. A landlord-tenant existence developed, taking the lead from the Dutch patroons' land grants. Continuing the grants of land under the English, farms dominated the lower Hudson River valley, where powerful families controlled great land tracts of manorial estates. In the 1760s, New Englanders encroached into the area, and land riots against the owners of Hudson Valley manors were suppressed by British troops.