1. Mr. Sandford AP American History
MERCANTILISM
Mr. Sandford
AP American History

2. Mercantilism 4 Main Goals
Encourage growth of native merchant ships, this included the colonial ships.
Protect English manufacturers from foreign competition.
Protect English Agriculture, especially grain farmers.
Accumulate as much hard money as possible. (Colonial money was worthless in England, merchants wanted Gold!)

3. Mercantilism
The colonists supplied raw materials to England and they could buy the finished products back from GB.
GB wanted to be self-sufficient, and new that the colonies played a large role.
For this to be successful, GB needed laws and regulations to protect wealthy British merchants and industrialists at the expense of the colonists.
A mercantilist economy is a managed economy, managed by the larger and stronger power.

4. Regulations To Support Mercantilism
NAVIGATION ACT OF 1651
All imports or exports had to be carried on GB ships.
Targeted the Dutch control of world wide shipping.
All crews must be at least 1/2 British or Colonists.
NE economy - “carrying trade” - increased.

5. Regulations to Support Mercantilism
Act of 1660
Required all exports from the colonies to go to GB.
GB merchants would then sell or trade the materials around the world.
Tobacco, sugar, indigo, cotton, molasses – ENUMERATED PRODUCTS
It also required all Colonial imports to go through GB.
Each product was taxed before being sent.
All products imported or exported assists the GB economy.

6. Regulations to Support Mercantilism
The third type of law dealt with GB subsidizing certain products produced in GB which allowed their goods to be cheaper and bought more by the colonists.
The fourth type of law prohibited colonists from manufacturing certain products on a large scale that may compete with GB manufacturers

7. How GB Saw It
Mercantilism was explained by its proponents, as a "a philosophy of nation building, a series of economic controls intended to strengthen a country ... against other … empires. A major tenant of this view was self-sufficiency: sources of supply--raw materials, agriculture, and industry--should be developed domestically, or in colonies, to prevent interruptions by hostile foreigners”

8. Did it Help the Colonies?
Protection from foreign competition helped New England's ship building industry.
Individual colonies benefited by specializing.
Various colonial exporters benefited when they exported to Britain because competing goods from foreign nations were subject to tariffs theirs were not.
The colonies were easily made into “international traders” because of the British Empire.

9. But,
On the other hand, colonists paid more than they otherwise would have for imports from foreign countries (Tariffs)
Southern planters, particularly rice and tobacco planters, bore much of the burden, because most Southern exports went there, while smaller shares of the other two regions' exports went there.
New Englanders often evaded this cost through trading with foreign countries illegally.