Activities.

In the large port cities of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia merchants were the individuals who imported or exported goods in bulk. Usually they also owned or rented a warehouse. In contrast, shopkeepers sold only a limited amount of goods at retail— that is, to ordinary customers rather than to other merchants. In areas outside of the port cities, however, merchant became a generic term that referred to any individual who bought and sold goods. By the time of the Revolution the largest of the mercantile businesses specialized in importing and wholesaling, but most merchants did not confine themselves to particular goods or functions. The colonial market was simply too small and scattered, and transportation and communication too primitive to allow for the kind of large-scale specialists that emerged in the nineteenth century. Instead most colonial merchants in the port cities made a living...