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Effect of British Mercantilism
British mercantilism
British colonies and mercantilism
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The Georgian period of the British Empire is defined by the rule of the Hanoverian kings who were all named George. The Late-Georgian era spans from 1763, with the reign of George III, George IV and William IV to the crowning of Queen Elizabeth in 1837. The Georgian era was a time of British expansion throughout the world. During this period mercantilism dominated British and Western European economic policies. British Imperial trade was governed by The Navigation Act of 1651, which restricted colonial trade for almost 200 years. But it was in 1763, with the end of the Seven Years War that the modern age of imperial colonialism had truly begun.
Mercantilism sparked the creation and expansion of colonies and caused wars between many of the large European countries. Mercantilism is a system were the mother country benefited by forbidding its colonies from trading with countries outside the mother country and its other colonies. Raw materials were worked domestically and finished goods were sold inside the mother countries’ colonies, excess goods were exported to supply more gold to the mother countries economy.
Great Britain employed mercantilism in the so-called triangle trade. Ships from Liverpool would take textiles, rum and finished goods to Africa. Then on the West African coast, these goods would be traded for men, women and children who had been captured by slave traders or bought from African chiefs, in exchange for finished goods. It often took a long time for a captain to fill his ship. The slavers would often spend three to four months sailing along the coast, looking for the fittest and cheapest slaves. There was often violent resistance by Africans against slave ships and their crews. They were attacks from th...
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...t of any other European country. The American colonies declared and won independence from the empire. Great Britain outlawed the slave trade effectively ended the triangle trade. The doctrine of free trade eventually replaced mercantilism.
The triangle trade accounted for over 2 million slaves sold to plantations in the British West Indies and 500,000 slaves to North American plantations. This was a dark time in British and American History from which many argue, the countries have still not fully recovered to this day. Slavery was the worst aspect of several forms of exploitation of colonies and colonist by the British Empire through its mercantilism and discriminatory taxation and regulation of its colonies, which in the end was doomed to fail and be replaced by a system that treated colonies and colonists with at least slightly more fairness and equality.
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 South Atlantic (Triangle Trade) system occurred during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Europeans replaced the Portuguese as the major slave traders in the Atlantic. The Triangle Trade consisted of enslaving approximately 11 million Africans, and importing them to the American colonies; as the labor force needed to produce cash crops, they were exchanged for manufactured goods.
To expand, the European great powers took part in a tremendous race to colonize the world, and by doing so, enormous global conflicts began to take place. The revolution brought forth by the American rebels against the British created a tremendous and lasting effect on the globalizing world. Alongside the colonizing movement, originated new trade regulations, shifting alliances, and an ocean overran with commercial exploits (Bender 62). Colonies of the European superpowers, especially the thirteen American colonies, began to feel exploited, and further, were often denied the right commerce by their colonizers (Bender
Transatlantic trade was a subject of great competition between three powerful European nations; England, the Netherlands and France. England in particular, had very strict rules that Parliament passed, from 1651-1733, in order to acquire more money through the colonies. For example, the colonies could not trade with any other country besides England, in addition, they were not allowed to manufacture certain products. Despite the unfairness of these new laws, England's financial goals were accomplished, as the Dutch soon lost superiority in the Atlantic trade and their internal and external economy grew. Not only did these new laws become the catalyst of London emerging as a powerful city, but between 1650 and 1770,
“In the history of the Atlantic slave trade, the French turned four times as many Africans into slaves as the Americans did, they continued the slave trade -- legally -- until 1830, long after the rest of Europe had given it up” (“French Slavery”). The negatives and positives of slave trade come to a stalemate because slave trade both increased the economies of France and Britain, while undermining the human work force. As slave trade began to be questioned by morality, France became the dominant slave trade power. While European political leaders encouraged the colonization of Africa in order to collect cheap labor to compete with neighboring countries, British and French societies suffered from internal disputes, leading to the termination of slave trade in Europe.
Portuguese and a few of Spanish people started the slave trade, which the African slaves was taken to the American colonies. Slaves were sold at a slave market, which shows in Source A. In Source B, it shows the cost of the slaves during the period of 1804 to 1861, this proves that the slavery is really a good business at that time. In Africa the slave trade let to the creation of powerful West African kingdoms, profited from selling slaves to the Europeans. In Britain, 12, 000 boats travelled with 2, 600 000 slaves as well as in Holland wherein 2000 boats travelled with 500, 000 slaves in
Slaves and slave trade has been an important part of history for a very long time. In the years of the British thirteen colonies in North America, slaves and slave trade was a very important part of its development. It even carried on to almost 200 years of the United States history. The slave trade of the thirteen colonies was an important part of the colonies as well as Europe and Africa. In order to supply the thirteen colonies efficiently through trade, Europe developed the method of triangular trade. It is referred to as triangular trade because it consists of trade with Africa, the thirteen colonies, and England. These three areas are commonly called the trades “three legs.”
The establishment of a trade system between Europe, Africa, and the Americas, better known as the Triangular Trade, allowed for an increase in slave labor in the Americas, and in turn sent raw materials and finished products to Europe and Africa, respectively. Although the American colonies had always had interaction with Europe, there was no interaction with Africa before this time, especially not between Africa and the colonies. However, when the need for increased slave labor arose, so did the need...
Imperialism in the late 1800’s blossomed when a new phase of global expansion erupted. One of the main goals of this global expansion focused on new markets and sources of raw materials. Due to the Second Industrial Revolution, the demand for new markets and the exploding numbers in production compelled business leaders to search out new sources of investment for the growing economy. Rapid territorial expansion redirected the competing ideologies of agricultural demands, Native Americans, European Immigrants, and industrial capitalist in this new empire. In this search, manufacturers needed to find new raw materials in order to better equip themselves to sustain against the newly rising competitors. This caused competition with foreign market systems all around to begin pursuing an imperialistic empire. The European powers responded with aggressive nationalism when expanding their empire. This concept began trending internationally as other nations adapted the new concept of maintaining a steady nation through the new ideals of expansions.
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...
The first leg of the journey was from Europe, mainly Portugal to Africa. Many of the goods produced in Europe were not available in Africa or America. The Europeans traded manufactured goods, including weapons, guns, beads, cowrie shells (used as money), cloth, horses, and rum to the African kings and merchants in return for gold, silver and slaves. Africans were seen as very hard workers who were skilled in the area of agriculture and cattle farming. They were also used to the extreme temperatures that people of lighter complexions could not bear. There had always been slavery in Africa amongst her own people, where men from different tribes/villages would raid other villages to kidnap the women for their pleasures, and the men to use as slaves. To learn that they could actually profit from this activity made the job of getting slaves very easy for the Europeans. Slaves acquired through raids, were transported to the seaports were they were help prisoner in forts until traded.
Imperialism is when a world power colonizes a smaller country or kingdom, and then proceeds to exploit the land and resources of the kingdom or country. Through the majority of the 18th century, imperialism was a dominant force on global relations. During the peak of the Age of Imperialism, Queen Victoria and her British empire dominated the world. British Imperialism started in the late 1700’s because of population growth and the advances in technology industrialism that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. The areas that the British imperialized during this time period include India, a large part of Africa, and Australia.
European colonialism was the period between 16th and mid-20th century. The triangle trade had emerged in the 16th century and slaves, sugar, furs, and cotton, enforced through military interventions, drew together the people, politics, economics, and even diseases of Europe, Africa, and the Americans in a triangle of previously unimaginable, highly unequal, and long-lasting relationships of exchange. Even today, we can find traces of many of these connections in the global economy for example, the French military operating in Côte d’Ivoire. So, the European colonialism played a pivotal role in establishing the framework for today’s global economic system.
There are a lot of causes of the scramble for Africa, and one of them was to ‘liberate’ the slaves in Africa after the slave trade ended. The slave trade was a time during the age of colonization when the Europeans, American and African traded with each oth...
What is the Golden Age of English History? The Golden Age of English history often refers to Queen Elizabeth I. The Golden Age was centered on Queen Elizabeth’s reign, which was from 1558-1603. Elizabeth was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn (“Queen Elizabeth I Biography”). Henry had defied the papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor to marry Anne, spurred on by love and the need for a legitimate male heir ("Queen Elizabeth I: Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources."). Elizabeth 's birth is stated to be one of the most exciting political events in 16th century ("Queen Elizabeth I: Biography, Portraits, Primary Sources."). Elizabeth was born in 1533 on September seventh at the Greenwich Palace (“Queen Elizabeth I Biography”).