Buck Dollar Essay

Why is a “Dollar” often referred to as a “Buck”? As with many idioms or slang terms, the exact beginning of a word is difficult to pinpoint with one hundred percent certainty. However, the theory of the origin of the term “Buck” for “Money” is extremely plausible and backed up by a large number of early journal entries by frontiersman as documented evidence. Specifically, it is thought that a dollar is called a “buck” thanks to deer and their skins. In frontier areas, both before and after the American Revolution, money was in short supply. In fact, it was such an uncommon thing in the everyday lives of the frontier people that they relied primarily on bartering as a means of exchange. Such being, one of the most valuable commodities traded on the frontier were deerskins, or “buckskins.” They could be used to make shirts, trousers, moccasins, hats, and so much more, plus, they could be easily exchanged in order to

dollar was even minted, in a reference to the exchange rate for a cask of whiskey traded to Native Americans being “5 bucks”, referring to deerskins. In another documented reference from 1748, Conrad Weiser, well known for his success in negotiating a series of land treaties between colonists and indians, while traveling through present day Ohio, noted in his journal that someone had been “robbed of the value of 300 Bucks.”
However, this use of skins as a medium of exchange gradually died off over the next century as more and more Europeans moved in and built towns and cities. By the 1780’s, the word buckskin” was shortened to buck or bucks. Then, once the U.S. dollar was officially introduced after the passing of the Coinage Act of 1792, it quickly became the leading item used as a medium of exchange, but the term “buck” stuck around and by the mid-nineteenth century was being used as a slang term for the dollar. This is a term that is often used