Mercantilism During The New World

Back when the New World was being founded, the idea of mercantilism began to spring up. This concept infuriated many people, even though it was used to try and benefit the nation. England needed a way to rise above their neighboring rivals, and mercantilism seemed to be the answer. Over time, mercantilism began to shape the economic and political relationship between England and its new colonies.

Mercantilism was the primary economic system used during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. The intention was to increase a nation’s wealth by imposing government regulation concerning all of the nation’s commercial concerns. People believed by that limiting imports through tariffs and maximizing exports, national strength could be boosted.

Economically,

mercantilism shaped the relationship England had with its colonies. For the most part, colonial economy was greatly affected in a negative way because of the newfound idea of mercantilism. Britain’s main goal was to achieve economic dominance, and to do so, the English imposed several acts, one of them being the Navigation Act. With this act, important resources like tobacco and beaver fur that were produced in America could only be exported to England, who would then send it off to other countries in need of the raw materials. At the same time, America could only gain their exports from England. But in the long run, this idea ended up damaging the colonial economy immensely. The production of so many resources ended up being too much for the British market to handle and distribute, so they had to eventually drop the prices, which led to an economic downfall for the farmers of the New World.
While the economy of the New World was harmed, so was their political stance. Mercantilism allowed the government to take control of the colonies and their exports to England. Colonists had to sacrifice the well being of their own country to support and supply their mother country, England, with the resources they needed. Not only did they have to sell most of their resources to England, but they could only receive from England as well. This limited the incoming resources for the New World, resulting in a bit of a break down.
Overall, mercantilism seemed like a good idea at the time, but with most good things, there’s consequences. This idea shaped the relationship between England and the New World in many ways. Mostly negative, but a few good things emerged from mercantilism as well. The political and economic changes that occurred helped to create and form the United States early on.