Mercantilism and the Expansion of Empire

FOUNDATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC WORLD HIST 1301 | History Mercantilism and the Expansion of Empire Their competitors, England, France, and the Netherlands, quickly established settlements in North America in order to compete with Spain and Portugal. In the sixteenth century, England began establishing colonies on the North American continent; by the mid-1800s, these colonies spanned from Newfoundland to Georgia. In addition to tobacco, they brought in a wide range of products for England, from rice, indigo, and deer skins from the south, to lumber, furs, and salted fish from the northern colonies. Many young, jobless, and landless European men and women were drawn to the colonies and came to North America as indentured slaves, hired under contract to serve for a predetermined period of time. Following their years of labour and the payment of passage by the landowner, indentured slaves were liberated and usually granted a grant of land. North American colonies were also established by France and the Netherlands. In the name of King Francis I, Jacques Cartier annexed Canada, also known as New France, in 1535. Similar to England, France was unable to sustain a stable settlement in North America until Samuel de Champlain established one in Quebec in the seventeenth century. Additional French colonies were founded in Louisiana (named for King Louis XIV), on the southern coast of Newfoundland, and in what is today the state of Maine. The principal exports to France were furs and skins from animals. Before it was given to England in 1664, a tiny Dutch colony that had prospered in what is now New York and New Jersey also did so briefly. In the New Netherlands, the Dutch immigrants followed the French in their primary occupation of the fur trade, though many of them also became farmers and settled in the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and Long Island. The goal of the European powers was to take as much raw material as they could, including agricultural goods, skins, and furs, from their colonies on the continent. To guarantee that its population remained restricted to fur trappers and dealers, a few farmers to supply food, and troops to protect them, France regulated immigration to Canada. The Company of New France was given a monopoly over the fur trade by the French government in 1627. In Canada, the corporation required all fur trappers to either work directly for them or sell their furs to them. A 25 percent sales tax was imposed by the government on traders. Louis XIV gave the business royal authority in 1663. Spain imposed the strongest regulations on colonial trade. Only a few ports in the Spanish colonies and the port of Seville in Spain were used for trade, and each year two merchant ships sailed from Seville on their way to the Americas. Other times, trade was prohibited by the Spanish government. Furthermore, anybody who wanted to trade had to pay a lot of money to obtain a licence to do so. Along with these monopolies, the Spanish government owned all the mercury produced in the Peruvian colony and a monopoly on all silver produced in its colonies. Spanish colonies had to import mercury from Peru in order to refine the gold and silver they extracted. The Caribbean islands, where sugar could be farmed, were the principal reward, even if the mainland colonies produced wealth for the home nations of the Europeans. England, France, and the Netherlands established colonies throughout the Caribbean throughout the seventeenth century on islands that were either seized from or not claimed by Spain. The three also made an attempt to form colonies in Central or South America, but the dominance of the Spanish and Portuguese there either prevented them from succeeding, as was the case with the Dutch endeavours in Brazil, or kept them tiny, as was the case with French Guiana and Dutch Guiana, which is now Suriname.