Exploring The Role Of Mercantilism In The United States

This was encouraged by the fact that the British government had left them to govern themselves with little oversight or interference, referred to as salutary or benign neglect. The British government had passed what were named Navigation Acts which required the sale of raw materials by the colonies to Britain only. This is referred to as Mercantilism. Mercantilism is the idea that you should only trade with certain countries; an economic system used by colonial power to exploit the colonies for the benefit of the host country. This benefited Britain.

Question 1 When the Queen Anne’s War ended in 1713, the impact on the British Colonies was very strong. The lands of Hudson Bay, Acadia, and Newfoundland were ceded to the Britain and due to the cession of France the British faced less economic damages as compared to French and Indians. The changes in the social and economic orders were also noticeable which were due to the distributed land. Moreover, there were other lands ceded by Spain to Great Britain such as Gibraltar and Minorca and also the contract of slave trading named Asiento was also given to Britain.

During the Ages of Exploration, various European nations, such as Spain, French and England, created colonies in the newly discovered America. England, in particular, created settlements near the East coast of North America. The reason behind the rapid expansion and colonization was the idea of mercantilism. Mercantilism is when the mother country, England, exports more than it imports. The colonies were responsible for bringing the raw materials to the mother country, where it was turned into finished goods and then be exported. Mercantilism was believed to be a zero-sum game, which meant that if one country had something, other countries could not take it. Since Spain already had various settlements in the New World, England wanted to compete with them and gain land to become more economically advanced. Two particular regions of settlement for the English colonies were the Chesapeake region and New England. The Chesapeake region include present-day Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The New England region included Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Although they were both English colonies, they had developed distinct societies. People left England to go to the New World for different reasons. Whether it was for religious or for political reasons, it had caused the two regions of settlement to differ from each other in the colonies’ social, political, religious, and economic aspects.

Mercantilism was meant to protect English companies by generating wealth and was stimulated by an accumulation of profit. The Navigation Acts were a byproduct of mercantilism in the British colonies. These acts restricted the use of foreign ships for trade between England and the colonies. They were enacted because the British wanted the full profit from their goods. Salutary neglect was the British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of Parliamentary Laws aiming to keep the colonies obedient to England. Salutary neglect lead to the growth of a colonial economy, and demands for local rule. Smuggling was the colonists’ reaction to the Navigation Acts. They ignored the restrictions, and continued to trade with the French, Dutch, and the Spanish West Indies. The colonial shippers bribed the British trade officials in order to continue their illegal

Between 1492 and around 1735, Europe colonized in the Americas in order to gain more land. However, it was not due to excessive population in Europe, but rather mercantilism. In mercantilism, countries try to gain as much wealth as possible by increasing export and decreasing import. Europeans established the American colonies for their resources and not for the expansion of the countries. In North America, England colonized the eastern coast for its lumber, iron ore, and cash crops. The colonies were split into three sections, New England, the Middle Colonies, and Southern Colonies. Each had its own economy. In each of the colonies, the resources were gathered and turned into other products. However, there were not enough settlers willing to do this so the landowners used slavery to harvest and refine goods.

The English wanted to keep their competitors from dominating in international trade. Also, they wanted to keep the colonist from becoming competitors and increasing their economy. Due to these acts, North American colonies couldn’t compete with the English manufactures, and trade practically didn’t exist between the colonies and other nations besides England. Another main reason English mercantilism harmed the development of North America was taxation. England needed money to pay for its war debts.

The colonists as we know came to the New World to start a better life in a new place. However, it was later proven that they wanted to make money in all sorts of things and ways and they also wanted to practice their religion away from anyone else. Therefore, it is clear to say that the colonists came to the New World to make money and practice their own religion.

During the Revolution, there were thirteen different colonies, and when talked about they were divided into three different geographical locations, northern, middle and southern. The Northern region, also known as, the New England colonies, consisted of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The Southern colonies consisted of Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. “In the old colonial system a colony was to be a colony in the most obvious sense of the word: a perpetually subordinate agricultural and extractive area that served the mother country as a source of raw materials, a safety valve for excess or unwanted population, and a market for finished goods.” During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, mercantilism played a major role throughout the colonies. Mercantilism is a economic theory that enabled the government to regulate the economy for the purpose of building-up the rival nations economic power. The colonies, which belonged in the northern region, were a dysfunctional

The purpose of mercantilism was to increase power, wealth and self sufficiency for the mother countries. England, Spain and france would often compete with each other to gain colonies in regions such as North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. Raw materials such as lumber, wool, iron, cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo were what England needed to be able to create manufactured goods. However, mercantilism in the American colonies were more dependent on the manufactured products of England. The Navigation Acts that were a series of laws were enforced by England so that they could make the American colonies more dependent on the manufactured goods of England.The American colonists were expected to buy manufactured goods like cloth, furniture,knives,

The colonists who originally came from England in the early colonial century, faced many acts that took away their rights to make a sturdy profit and acts that taxed them to an extent that was not even reasonable for the people. “Imperial reorganization, many people in England claimed, would increase the profitability of the colonies and the power of the English government to supervise them.”(60) Colonists found it easy to trade with the French, and Dutch for goods that the Mother Country would not supply them with. A good trade relationship formed with the colonies and their foreign trade partners. “For a time, the English government made no serious efforts to restrict this challenge to the principles of mercantilism.”(61) England in 1650 then started passing laws that would regulate colonial trade. The government passed a major law that would keep the colonists from trading with the

The British had the idea of mercantilism where a the economys wealth was judged by how much gold and silver it had, the colonies supplied the mother land with materials and then the mother country produced products to sell back to the colonies

The intense effect of Puritans in North America is by developing the economy using Mercantilism and triangular trade. Mercantilism took place during 1660 and 1750 and played a crucial role in the development of Colonial North America. Mercantilism refers to the policies that guarantee the prosperity of the nation by eliminating the dependence on foreign supplies, damaging foreign competitors commercial interests, and increasing their net stock of gold and silver by trading more abroad than buying. Many planters in the Colonial America made their own sugar refineries and made molasses instead of shipping their raw sugar to refineries in France. The colonies especially Massachusetts sold much of

Mercantilism is an economic theory where a nation's strength comes from building up gold supplies and expanding its trade. Britain formed the American colonies so that they could increase their gold stores. They wanted raw supplies to make into products to sell and make money. They wanted America to pay taxes so that Britain could make money. America used the theory in that they thought they ought to, in order to be strong expand their trade beyond Britain. Countries like Belgium, and France wanted to also increase their trade, and expand it to trading with America. They also wanted to increase their gold stores by trading with America. Britain however did not want America to trade with France and Belgium and the Netherlands because they

Sir Thomas Mun (1571-1641), a famous economic thinker from the sixteenth century, was most closely associated with the idea of Mercantilism. This school of thought mainly focused on international trade and the balance of trade through acquisition of silver and gold. Thomas Mun achieved many accomplishments in his 70 years of life; most notably, his role as the Director of the East India Company, publishing books and pamphlets on his theory of mercantilism, molding England’s trade policies to maximize the nation’s wealth, and further setting a precedent for international trade that many countries thereafter followed.

Mercantilism is a political and economical system that continued on the 16th to late 18th century. It means that a country’s economic power is related to the maintenance of a positive balance of trade. That is, in order to remain economically and politically exist, a country most export more than it imports. Such a positive balance of trade, according to mercantilist thought, causes the gold to surplus in the country’s treasury. So as to achieve these, international trade must be done. Key ideas of mercantilism is that national wealth will came through the accumulation of gold or other precious metals such as silver. They can be acquired by export. Raw materials were imported and final products were exported to provide a positive balance of trade. Colonial possessions should serve as markets for exports and as suppliers of raw materials