Essay about 17th Century English Mercantilism

Mercantilist ideas emphasized that nations should strive toward economic self-sufficiency and that the power of a nation should be measured by the amount of its gold and silver reserves. Ultimately, a nation should arrange to produce everything it needed for its own citizens and sell surpluses to for hard currency. This metal reserve, in turn, could be used in emergency situations to pay for wars or solve shortages. Colonies, like those England had in North America, played an important part in this economic equation. They could help England become self-sufficient by producing things that could not be made or grown there such as tobacco, sugar, and tall masts for ships. Colonists could also provide a market for British goods, particularly manufactured products, such as woolen cloth or beaver hats. This meant that the home economy in England could become more fully developed, while the colonial economies were relegated to a role of supplying raw materials.

Throughout the 17th century, many European countries sent explorers and settlers to America. The two most eminent countries that colonized area of America were Spain and Great Britain. Britain began to establish colonies in the northeast; in the area they called New England. The Spanish interest lied in the southwest. Living in two unassociated areas caused the Spanish settlements and the New England colonies to be quite unlike each other. When faced with the task of finding similarities between the two, not much can be found. It is the differences that stand out when studying the English and Spanish, from religion to politics to ideals.

1. The main contours of English Colonization in the 17th century were Protestant motives to strike Catholicism, along with solving England’s social crisis. With the rumors of the Spanish Empire’s atrocities reaching England, one motive to colonize the America’s was to strike the Catholics, and save the natives from captivity (Foner 51). This shows an interesting aspect of the English Colonization: the English allowed their people to go colonize just to strike the opposing religious country. Along with this, England sending emigrants over solved their social crisis. Because of England’s growing population and economy, the amount of peasants in cities grew. This is because of landlords using land for sheep, which kicked out peasants from their land (Foner 51-52). England hoped that some people of the lower classes would then go to America: to be out of the big cities where important people were, while still helping England in it’s economy.

Dictating that Massachusetts produce a certain annual allowance of cotton for the crown would be ridiculous. Due to distance, the Crown was unable to directly regulate economic policy and trade within the colonies so the colonists were forced to devise a regulatory system. This system allowed “a young business man [to] borrow money and move into trade, challenging the commercial position of older, more experienced merchants” (Text, 51).

The Navigation Acts were still in hated but weren’t enforced and this resulted in smuggling, Tobacco was a booming economy and mercantilism helped it grow

England, in an effort to establish greater control over North American colonies in the mid-1600s under the rule of King Charles II, implemented the Navigation Acts to regulate colonial commerce, along with increased British law in North America, most notably in New England. The Navigation Acts essentially created a monopoly in which colonial settlements could only trade with England, thus contributing to England's overall wealth and power, according to the theory of mercantilism. Before King Charles II passed the Navigational Acts, the English Parliament created laws that kept Dutch ships out of the American colonies, limiting some colonial trade opportunity. The first of these Navigational Acts kept the colonies from trading with any nation other than England, along with requiring the colonists that grew tobacco to only sell it to England. The second act required any country that wished to trade with the colonies go through England first, giving England an opportunity to tax them.

The Assemblies controlled the government because the assemblies have the financial power and all the support. The American colonies were failed as a useful government by the British. Navigation acts were laws that restricted the use of foreign ships for trade between Britain and its colonies, also its designed to implement the mercantilist. The English mercantilists object was to increase the wealth of the England in gold and silver, also to minimize imports that cost money and maximize exports and trades.. The merchants would sell products to foreign nations and purchased items to be sold within the nation. The nation would produce everything its people needed and but nothing from foreign

1. Explain the early policies set in place by the Board and their impact upon the American colonies. The Board of Trade was put in place by the English in 1969, which took place of the Lord of Trade (Nash et al., 2008). Its purpose was to examine all of the colonial legislation and the laws that inhibited the potential of their imperial trades.

Free trade was very important to every individual’s livelihood. Without seemingly no interruption from Britain, colonist traded with many different European powers. Not only did this boost the colonial economy, but paved way for an angry bunch of colonists when London does double down on its policy enforcement. But prior to this, traders and merchants operated with ease. The sudden stop of these operations is what had poured oil over the fire of the evolution towards revolt. Prosperous trade with a variety of countries consisting of slaves and cash crops, chiefly in the south, had made many slave owners

In the 1650’s, the British government longed to embellish its authority and establish more centralized control governing its Colonies. Parliament established the Navigation Acts which only allowed British vessels to ferry

In 1760, when George III was made kind of England, he saw that Britain are in debt because of the seven years’ war, he decided to make a way out by making the colonies be part of the payment. Likewise, he increases the taxes and make sure they did not enough partner to trade with so that they can gain more profits. To the people in the colonies they felt it was a cheat and violation of “Navigation Act” (Foner 186). Just because they did not have a representative in the parliament. In 1761, James Otis was a lawyer, who stood against the writs of assistance to combat smuggling (Foner 186). The writs were a search houses if there is an evidence of smuggling goods. In addition, some people who do not support the stamp Act oppose it and differentiate between “internal taxes” from the stamp duty, brought about the idea that the parliament do not have the right to impose any thing on them or their trade. Above all, they do not have right to tax American since they do not have

Key Terms and People mercantilism Mercantilism is a theory that states that a country grows to be strong and important through money that comes from a favorable balance of trade, meaning that a country must export more goods than it imports. Mercantilism kept England powerful, as the colonies provided raw goods that were used to make ships for the navy. Also, the raw goods were used to make products that were sold to other countries. England also had no cause to buy certain products from other countries. It was able to export more products than it imported, keeping the county wealthy and powerful.

This was the economic system in which a Mother Country (Britain) starting colonies in other countries. These colonies provide the Mother Country with all the natural resources that it can not provide for itself, and would otherwise have to purchase from other European countries at a higher price. In turn, the Mother Country would sell their manufactured goods back to the colonies and around the world. This is not fully a disadvantage for the colonies.

Imperialists suggested that the colonies could be used to the advantage of mother nations due to the fact that they could possibly provide raw resources that are rare or unavailable in Europe’s area of residence. Thus, they started to expand, rapidly making colonies to gain more resources and places of trade, this formed a system called a global economy. Study.com under the video of “The 19th Century World Economy: Major Changes & Their Impact”, defined a global economy as one that integrates trade goods, services, and money. This makes the world more intertwined and the imperialists used this to form their next point that colonies would take in manufactured goods and give off raw resources, benefiting the colony and the mother nation in the

. At the expense of the English colonies, the employment of mercantilist policies permitted the British Empire to prosper in wealth and power.