Mercantilist Vs American Trade Frameworks

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the British government was in control of the North American colonies. The prime reason for the British government to control the English colonies was so Britain could trade with the colonies. The English colonies had crops like sugar and tobacco that couldn’t be grown in England so the British relied on the colonies to ship these products to them. The colonies were able to use the British ships in trade for the colonies’ crops. With the policy of mercantilism developing in the 17th century, Britain said they could help the English colonies become a strong country by trading, even though the trading mostly helped the British.

Like other imperial countries, he wanted to encourage mercantilism, which would strengthen England. Limitations such as Navigation Act of 1660 meant only certain products could be sold and shipped to England and other colonies; The Staple Act stated that all foreign goods had to be loaded and reloaded at English ports with English ships; and Revenues Act of 1663 required that ship captains transporting certain colonial goods pay a "plantation duty" on any items not delivered to England” (Jelatis). This only allowed for England to make a profit off of trade, which in the long run negatively affected the colonists. This occurred because King Charles II believed that it was the duty of the colonies to create money for England, but it began to impede on the colonists’ ability to establish commerce in the late 18th

The British men gathered full control of the trading center present in the Americas, and created the Navigation Acts to help aid them in their tactics to take control over all trade within the Americas. The Navigation Acts were passed under a mercantilist system, and was used to regulate trade in a way that only benefitted the British economy. These acts restricted trade between England and its colonies to English or colonial ships, required certain colonial goods to pass through England before export, provided subsidies for the production of certain raw goods in the colonies, and banned colonial competition in large-scale manufacturing. This lowered the competition in the trading world for the British and caused the British to have a major surge in power, that greatly attributed to the growth of their rising empire. The British’s ambitious motives in the trading world help portray a way that the British took control of an important piece in the economy of all of the other nations present in the colonies in the time period, and shows another leading factor in the growth of the British empire.

The establishment of the Naval Stores Act urged mercantilists to regard forests in America as profitable, and enabled Wood to represent the more concrete advantages of American naval stores production than Pollexfen in the 1690s. In the 1720s, thanks to the increase in Britain’s import of American pitch and tar, Gee and Defoe confirmed the efficacy of the naval stores policy and enunciated a proposition to make this policy more effective. In particularly, Defoe asserted that Britain should switch the sources of naval stores and timber from the Baltic trade to Colonial America with the temporary halt of the Baltic naval stores trade, although other mercantilists supported the Baltic naval stores trade on the ground that naval stores from the Baltic trade was essential for British maritime power in spite of a huge deficit. The progress of the naval stores policy and Britain’s import of American naval stores inspired mercantilists to discuss this policy, and they focused on the Northern Colonies by emphasising the mercantile advantages. However, they had little paid attention to Carolina, which was the prominent sources of American naval stores in the eighteenth century, as Carolina was already regarded as beneficial for the mother country as sources of

This boosted the economy in America because now it was exporting and importing directly to countries instead of going through England. This demonstrated to some colonists that they didn’t really need to rely on England, and that they could sustain themselves on their own through their independent

For the mercantilist European nations, their colonies were important as they produced raw materials - grain, sugar, or tobacco - for the nation, which otherwise they would have to import. The colonies also gave the European nations an outlet for exports, which increased jobs and industrial development. Although, if the colonies traded with other countries other than their “mother country,” none of that would happen, therefore Britain took legal steps to force its colonists to buy and trade only with England by introducing the Navigation Acts. For example, tobacco and other raw materials had to be shipped to england to first be taxed and/or

Great Britain and France had been at war, on and off, since 1793. The United States, which traded with both countries, was caught in the middle. Britain blocked all French seaports and insisted that U.S. ships first stop at a British port and pay a fee before continuing to

Through Jay’s Treaty England gave America the “most favored nation” status, which meant that American merchants got a break on taxes on imported goods; “.. they shall pay no other higher duties or charges on the importation or exportation of the cargoes of the said vessels…(Phillips 146)” By having reduced trading costs Americans were able gain benefit because

‘New money’ would allow upward social mobility. Also, there was lots of land that could be acquired, and that allowed for economic growth. Mercantilism was a way that the British kept economic control of the colonies. This way, the colonies would make money for Britain. The navigation acts and the sugar act were both laws enacted to restrict trade in the colonies.

Due to their recent war with the French, Britain and its colonies were in debt. Britain turned to the colonies as a source of revenue to pay back money, and Parliament passed acts placing taxes and tariffs on the colonies and American trade. Following the revolution, the United States was in debt to France, who helped them fight Britain during the war and supplied money, troops, and supplies. Some Americans demanded paper currency and equal distribution of property (Doc. G). Although the manufacturing industry was growing in America, it was growing very slowly.

Since there was debt because of the war, the economy was already very bad in Britain – therefore they taxed the colonies. When the colonies started boycotting British products and threatened to stop trading with them all together, it was successful because Britain’s economy wasn’t strong enough to handle those things. The merchants in Britain couldn’t afford to have trade with America end. If the British merchants were hurt, this would thus hurt The economy as a whole in Britain. In later decades, in the War of 1812, America would try to stop trade with Britain again using a method called embargo, which would not be effective because they did not have the debt that the War had caused.

Since trade was boosted, Americans came to accumulate a large amount of debt to the British creditors. (Henretta & Brody, 2010) In order to extract money from the colonist to repay their debt, the British then began to place tariffs on many common items that had no reason to be taxed. The colonies felt the same way and even though they had an underlying debt, they felt that this was the improper way to go about

We see the contradictions arise for the South beginning in 1764 with the passage of the Sugar Act and the effective end of England’s salutary neglect on its colonies. By this time, the colonies had already established their own forms of government which were run by ‘the people’ (as evidenced by the Mayflower Compact and House of Burgesses) and had grown content governing themselves with little to no interference from mother England. So, when she did try to finally exert authority over the colonies it was met with resistance. In resisting England’s attempts to regain control over its colonies, the colonies found that if they worked together, they could stand up to England and even win, as evidenced by the non-importation movement in 1764 and parliaments revision of the Grenville Acts as a response to the colonists united boycott. This unity would continue all the way through to the American Revolution.8

Economic nationalism or mercantilism is the realist approach to international political economy. This theory considers the state to be the most significant actor in the international system, views international economic relations between states as competitive in nature and claims there is a direct relationship between the pursuit of political power and economic wealth. It is the relative economic power of the state, in comparison with other states, that is most important. This perspective criticizes liberal ideas of free trade, claiming that they were not applicable to the reality of a world of nation states. Rather than being in the interest of all individuals, in reality a free trade system would favour the most advanced manufacturing states.

Mercantilists believed money was equal to power, and that wealth was strongly correlated to political or state power. But over all, their entire goal was to advance the country’s interest through regulation. They defined wealth through the country’s supply of precious metals (e.g. gold and silver). All goods needed to be produced in the country itself to be able to decrease imports and increase exports, so that there would be a surplus on the balance of trade. A positive balance of trade was a key player as it insinuates advancements in wealth.