According to Princeton University’s wordnet, an interloper is defined as someone who intrudes on the privacy or property of another without permission. In the fifteenth to sevententh century the word ‘interloper’ commonly referred to a ship and crew that associated in smuggling. It is recorded that Interloping ships traded goods and slaves out of the monopoly of the Spanish’s West Indian Company. (Paesie, R. 2008) Mercantilism, (which was also referred to as merchant capitalism), was the governing economic system of the Spanish colonies. This meant only the mother country of a colony would supply and control the importing and exporting of goods, thus preventing trade with any other country, and guaranteeing total control of wealth from that settlement. Mercantilism ensured that Spanish colonies could only sell to and purchase from Spain. Spanish citizens enjoy this expansion of their treasure until it was challenged by the British, French and Dutch. The English and French were the main settlers, while the Dutch were the main traders of the 1600s. The French, Dutch and British becam...
The short stories "The Interlopers" and "The Story of an Hour" are both great stories. The Interlopers stars Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym along with their decades-long family grudge. The Story of an Hour includes Mrs. Louise Mallard and the unfortunate death of her husband. To compare and contrast these stories, we need to know where their plots overlap and where they are set apart.
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...
The Europeans came to the Americas with an imperialistic attitude. They wanted to take over the land and they thought their goods and beliefs were better than those of the Natives. Document 7 shows that the Mother Country sent over many goods of their own for trade from the colonies. The goods from the Mother Country overpowered and took the place of the Native’s goods.
Firstly, the Caribbean smuggling was viewed as necessary and positive in the late eighteenth century. According to William Taggart, a British sailor traveling to testify at his smuggling trial in April 1760, the illegal transportation of goods from the Spanish port of Monte Christi led to general prosperity in the area, as there were only 100 relatively poor families and that the governor had full knowledge of this and demanded a tax of one silver Spanish coin. Taggart mi...
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...
Although this essay is historically accurate it lacks important details, which might paint a different view of Columbus. Boorstin writes favorable of Columbus and depicts him as a heroic and determined figure who helped shape history, but he neglects to include Columbus’ unethical acts committed in the world that was not supposed to exist, the Americas. When Columbus first discovered the New World, he took care that the royal standard had been brought ashore and he claimed the land for Spain in front of all, including the indigenous population who had been sighted even before Columbus made landfall. According to the medieval concepts of natural law, only those territories that are uninhabited can become the property of the first person to discover them. Clearly this was an unethical act. Thus, the first contact between European and non-European worlds was carried out through a decidedly European prism, which ensured Spanish claim to the islands of the Americas. Faced with a colony in an inhospitable area, the Spanish soon inaugurated the practice of sending regular military parties inland to subdue the increasingly hostile natives. Members of the indigenous population were captured and enslaved to support the fledgling colony. The object of Columbus’ desire changed from exploration and trade to conquest and subjugation.
Introduction: The motivation for settlers to travel to the Americas was not the intranational and international rivalries revolving around choice of religion and all-around “we’re better than you” mentality, but instead the goal for each to increase their own personal wealth. The colonists were part of the Virginia Company, which was divided into two smaller companies: London Company and Plymouth Company. The founding of Virginia marked the beginning of a second round of colonization attempts from England, as the first round of attempts in the 1570s and 1580s failed miserably. Rather than grant conquistadors the permission to claim land for them, as well as give them large sums of money for funding, the English used jointstock companies to lead settlers to the New World with the hope of profiting from this arrangement.
[12] C. Gathman, H. Hillman (2000), Commerce and Crime: States, Property Rights, and the War on Trade, 1700-1815, Dept. Sociology/Economics Stanford University.
The colonies became a go-to market for the England’s manufacture goods and a steady supplier of raw materials. England applied mercantilism to its colonies by passing strict laws, such as the Navigation Acts, to limit trade with foreign countries and to tax all goods. The West Indies mainly relied on exporting sugar for profit, and more often than not, the English trade restrictions prevented the colonists of the West Indies from maximizing profit. Thus, they frequently snuck around to trade with the French and Spanish. The Navigation Acts had a significant impact on the self sufficiency of the colonies. The colonists began to build their own ships and also made iron, silk, and lumber for themselves. This somewhat economic autonomy would become crucial as the colonists later defy English restrictions and would be a key in sustaining the early United
The first real country to colonize the Americas, aside from the Norse colony Vinland that traded with the Native Americans (Goldfield, 15), were the Spanish. The Spaniards primary goal in colonization of this world was the idea of “Reconquista”, or the conversion of heathens, namely the natives, to Christianity. They believed they had “religious justification for conquest” (Goldfield,
Similarly, we can look at the colonization of Latin America as a "business." Each country is like a global conglomerate, looking to make their "company" as wealthy as possible. This wealth and power was obtained through the exploitation of the people. For instance, if Spain decided to be legitimate in relation to the indigenous people, another country such as Portugal would end up being more powerful through power and control. In the same way, if a company decided to "play by the book", they would know another company would eventually be more powerful and wealthier than them in the future due to exploitation. A kind of "If we don't do it, they will" mindset. In a sense, the desire for power over other countries leads to the exploitation of the indigenous people either way. Stern explains that free labor was used to gain power and money. "Free labor, cut off from access to the means of production, has no al...
The world has always been connected. Through trade routes, the world was accessible to anyone who had goods and resources to offer and sell. However, not all countries and territories were part of this connection. Such as Europe, who lay withering away in their dark ages without connections to trade routes, as the rest of the developed world flourished. However, a change in the 1500 century led to the demise of the established wealth and to the rise to colonizing powers. These colonizing powers were dependent on the exploitation of another country’s resources and population. What led to this shift in power and the belief of colonialism? The search for wealth. Many primary sources describe this shift in power and belief; however, Christopher’s Columbus’ letter to the Luis de Santangel outlines this phenomena with such clarity that it sets and foreshadows the economic and religious foundation for the emerging belief of colonialism; and in turn resulting in some of the first colonization of the Americas.
Mercantile capitalism and mercantilist thought started off in the early times, specifically the 16th century to the 18th century. Trade was very much known among countries. As the years progressed, merchants, financiers, public administrators and the kings wanted to unify the country and end the opposition of nobles and landlords. To make sure the state’s power was effective internally, the security and stronghold of the Church and feudal aristocracy was implemented. As a result, the monarch seized the lands owned by the Church and tried to integrate feudal aristocracy into the system and at the same time provided the Church with economic opportunities within the world of trade. As time passed, the new mercantile system allied itself with the
According to them, the idea of free trade was the foundation for the expansion of influence into foreign areas like Asia and Africa. In essence, informal empires acted as the basis for nineteenth century European Imperialism. Not only did it remind powerful colonizers of the power of economic manipulation, but it instilled a greed within the minds of colonizers that motivated them to seek out more land and resources. The colonizer mindset that was so prevalent in the era of Cortes and Columbus maintained its influence in the 1800s, as well, leading to the formal empirical rule that shaped the modern era. Robinson and Gallagher’s theory holds much significance as it directly affects how territories are divided amongst countries and how government systems are built around the
This theory of economics said that colonies are only here to serve and glorify their mother country, in this case Britain. This lead to Britain's passing of the Navigation Laws. These laws mandated that all goods from the colonies had to be carried by British ships, thus making British merchants rich and important because everybody wanted goods form the New World and now they would have to go threw Britain to get them. The Navigational Acts were tolerated to a certain extent but also disobeyed by the common people when necessary. In 1763, the Seven-Year War in Europe and the French and Indian War in the colonies was over, and with the end came a British debt of ove...