Mercantilism is an economic theory where one country’s power is determined through the wealth of its supplies. The colony’s existence is through the benefit of the mother country. In return, the colonies were expected to contribute to wealth, prosperity, and self-sufficiency. The settlers were treated as farmers, where they were expected to produce tobacco and other necessities of England, and not to interfere with anything that did not belong to them. Overall, mercantilism was not beneficial, as the British were the only ones to profit from this concept. One reason why mercantilism was not beneficial is that it was mostly for economic reasons that benefited the British, and no other colony. For example, the British were the ones who controlled aspect of the people’s lives, when it came to commerce. For example, the British enforced restrictions on how one’s colonies could spend their money, on what goods they were able to produce, on …show more content…
For example, the Navigation Laws that were signed between 1651 and 1673 prevented countries from trading with the Americans. It limited the people’s abilities to buy goods from other places. Through the Navigation Acts, colonies were only allowed to buy goods from the British, and were only allowed to sell their goods to the British. However, the colonies were to import any non-English goods through the English ports, and also pay a sum for these imports. These acts also prohibited the colonies from making any goods that have already been produced by the English. Also, the settlers were not allowed to manufacture at home at their own time, like make woolen cloth and beaver hats. The Americans also didn’t have a specific currency where even though they were constantly purchasing from the British, they were expected to use gold and silver. Soon supplies were depleted as a form of paper money was to be printed, even though it was eventually
For example, the Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663 specified a number of key trade related rules. First, they specified that all colonial trade had to be carried on ships owned by British or colonial traders. Secondly, all colonial goods bound for North America had to pass through certain English ports, in order to be taxed and monitored. Finally, enumerated goods such as sugar were to be shipped only to English ports. Despite these laws existing, the government in London did not enforce them strictly up until 1763. This policy is often referred to as ‘salutary neglect’ and it had the effect of introducing a perceived sense of autonomy and self-determination in the North American colonies. Following 1763, the British government began to enforce the Navigation Acts British lawmakers began to introduce more Acts which further restricted and monitored colonial trade and increased taxes. To the parliament in London this was just enforcing and building upon old laws, an opinion that was not shared by the
Encomiendas: An encomienda was a grant of Native American labor given to prominent European men in the Americas by the Spanish king. This grant allowed European men to extract tribute from natives in the form of labor and goods. The value of the grants was dramatically increased with the discovery of gold and silver in the Americas. The significance of this term is that although this system was eventually repartitioned, it initiated the tradition of prominent men controlling vast resources and monopolizing native labor.
In a similar economic revolution, the colonies outgrew their mercantile relationship with the mother country and developed an expanding capitalist system of their own. In England, the common view was that the colonies only purpose was to compliment and support the homeland. This resulted in a series of laws and protocols called th...
After the French and Indian War ended, England had massive debt and little revenue, so Parliament passed laws taxing the American colonists to aid in paying for the British army and navy that helped protect the colonies. Parliament passed a series of laws, including the Sugar Act and Stamp Act, which taxed goods purchased by the colonists. Colonial merchants, who did not feel they should be taxed without representation in Parliament, signed non-importation agreements promising not to buy or import British goods. There was a lot of violence committed on the customs officials who were enforcing the...
Parker, Gary, and Charles Poe. "World's Most Dangerous Gang." World's Most Dangerous Gang. Nat Geo, 12 Feb. 2006. Television.
One facet of this unique system involved the numerous economic differences between England and the colonies. The English government subscribed to the economic theory of mercantilism, which demanded that the individual subordinate his economic activity to the interests of the state (Text, 49). In order to promote mercantilism in all her colonies, Great Britain passed the Navigation Acts in 1651, which controlled the output of British holdings by subsidizing. Under the Navigation Acts, each holding was assigned a product, and the Crown dictated the quantity to be produced. The West Indies, for example, were assigned sugar production and any other colony exporting sugar would face stiff penalties (Text, 50). This was done in order to ensure the economic prosperity of King Charles II, but it also served to restrict economic freedom. The geographical layout of the American colonies made mercantilism impractical there. The cit...
Ex. Despite the Navigation Acts, which were created to restrict foreign trade of the colonies to just Great Britain, the colonists had to depend on themselves for many things so they started to trade with other nations
Some of these acts included the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Declaratory Act, the Townshend Duties, the Tea Act, and the Intolerable Acts. These acts all had different goals, but were all extremely unfair to the colonists. The Sugar Act, also known as the Revenue Act, was passed by parliament in 1764. This act’s goals were to make custom regulations more strict and laid new taxes on foreign items that were imported into America, to the colonies. The Stamp Act, passed in 1765, was a tax on all printed materials, which includes: newspapers, stamps, playing cards, if you made your will, ect. This act basically put a tax on all materials that had to be printed, which is a lot of items and can add up in price. If the language being printed was foreign then the price of the tax was doubled. Another thing that was mandatory w...
Self-interest can be seen in many of the writings throughout American history. The mercantile system, as exhibited by the British on the colonies, was an extremely hedonistic approach to gaining wealth for themselves. Mercantilism, as set forth by the Navigation Acts, imposed strict and extremely descriptive laws that would limit and exploit trade in the colonies, allowing Britain to control the wealth and profit of materials and goods in America. These acts were used to keep America from trading with any other countries. As stated in the Navigation Act of 1660, "no goods or commodities whatsoever shall be imported into or exported out of any lands" to his Majesty belonging"in any other ship or ships...as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of England or Ireland" (Restoration 98). Britain knew that by controlling the colonies in this manner they could take the raw materials out and sell the finished products back, and by doing so they would profit greatly. This mercantile system exemplifies the arrogant minds of the British while America was developing. This system would soon become a failure due to the people's demands to have representation along with taxation, and their desire to separate from England as a free and independent state. Likewise, it was due to self-interest of the greedy planters and the self righteous farmers in the south that slavery was highly used. At that time they needed all the labor they could get, and the cheapest way to obtain it was through the purchase of slaves. Some of the slavery was downplayed by calling it indentured servitude, where servants were essentially slaves for a limited number of years.
In a similar economic revolution, the colonies outgrew their mercantile relationship with the mother country and developed an expanding capitalist system of their own. England's economic system was primarily based on mercantilism, which was directly related to the colonies. This concept of mercantilism said that wealth is power and however much power you have is how much gold and silver one country has in its treasury. For this concept to take place, England had to export more than import. Because the colonies had the raw materials needed England set up laws such as navigation laws to restrict what the colonies coul...
The French and Indian War impacted the trans-Atlantic economic relationship between the motherland and her colonies. Before the war colonists were rushing to buy new British manufactured goods resulting from the early stages of the industrial revolution. To pay for these manufactured goods, colonists increased their export of raw materials for sale to Britain. Although the exports were able to pay for a significant portion of cost of British imports, a significant shortfall was covered by British loans. This economic relationship saturated much of pre-French and Indian War colonial America and became normal. After 1763, Britain was in dreadful need for revenue to pay for the French and Indian War. Britain was clever on finding ways to raise revenue from the colonies. From 1650 to the end of the French and Indian War was a period of "salutary neglect." Britain had very little involvement in the lifestyle of the colonies. After the French and Indian War, mercantilism became strictly enforced. Merc...
Fishermen, trade, and the economy were all affected due to the New England Restraining Act. The goal of the act was to keep the colonies in order to allow them to only trade with Great Britain. Trade was no longer legal with any other country which caused controversy with the colonists. This law was created in response to the Coercive Acts, and its intent was to punish the colonies. Not being able to trade with any outside sources other than Great Britain limited the colonists on their amount of imports and exports, which severely damaged the economy. The New England Restraining Act had a great impact on starting the American Revolutionary War.
The British also implemented new taxes. The Sugar act of 1764 sought to reduce smuggling, which occurred partly as a result of the earlier Molasses Act. This gave British possessions in the Caribbean the upper hand in sugar trade, which in the British view helped the empire as a whole, but to Americans, and especially the merchants, this put limits on their opportunities. The Currency Act, passed about this time forbade the printing of colonial currency. British merchants benefited because they didn't have to deal with inflated American currencies. The Americans felt they were at an economic disadvantage as very little sterli...
In a similar economic revolution, the colonies out grew their mercantile relationship with England and developed their own expanding capitalist system. The idea of a set amount of wealth in the world and that if one were to become wealthy, he or she had to take from someone who is already wealthy, is basically what mercantilism means.
Even before the French and Indian War, political harmony between the colonies and the British was already being breaking down, due to all of the new acts that were passed in accordance with the mercantile theory of economics. This theory of economics believed that the goal of the individual should be to increase the total wealth of the country, and that the world wealth was finite. The British believed that the colonies only existed to increase the wealth of Britain.