From the founding of the Jamestown colony to the financing of the American Revolution, lotteries played an important role in the economic life of the colonies. Private citizens and public officials held lotteries in the British North American colonies and offered prizes of money, land, slaves, animals, and a variety of other goods to those colonists willing to purchase a ticket. Lotteries had been used in England since the sixteenth century, and colonists saw lotteries as a part of British life and brought lotteries with them as a proven means of raising revenue for public and private projects. Lotteries played a pivotal role in the development of colonial America, subsidizing the construction of churches and schools, financing internal improvements, and providing land owners and merchants with an effective means of disposing of possessions. And at least initially, the Crown and colonial governments granted colonists free reign to establish public and private lotteries.
Lotteries in Colonial America examines the role lotteries played in the economic life of the colonies, as an alternative form of raising revenue for public and private projects that was utilized from the founding of Jamestown to the financing of the American Revolution.
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