1. The need for gold and silver made it lucrative to carry out trade with other countries
2. Mercantilism - The economic policy that emphasized the need of every nation to build as much wealth as it can in order to gain power
3. Insurance companies became more formalized as risk mitigation started gaining priority. Laws were changed to deal with insurance issues
4. free trade policies. Governments became involved themselves in trade by grant royal trade monopolies.
The federal government established the interstate Commerce Commission to supervise the performance of the railroad industry. Railroads were the first industry to be regulated by the federal government.
The land west of Mississippi during the 1700's and most of the 1800' was land that was still dominated by the Native American tribes and the Spanish, and it was not safe at all for people to move in those parts considering the very bad relations with the native populations in that time of period. Also, the authorities, still hadn't tried to motivate people and try to make them settle in those areas with some measure that was going to be attractive for them.
Depending on the time period, the social class of traders changed.
If you are talking about Medieval to Early Renaissance, I would say your answer is C because traders were looked down upon and considered vagrants.
However if you are talking about High Renaissance onward you would see improvements in the standings of traders, rising to middle, possible even upper. So if the time period your problem is stating is of the High Renaissance onward I would say B or D.
