1. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
A. Mercantilism & the English Colonies
1. Mercantilists thought that a country should export more than it imported.
a) Exports are goods sent to markets outside a country.
b) Imports are goods brought into a country.
c) If England sold more goods than it bought abroad, gold would flow into the home country as payment for those exports.
2. Beginning in the 1650s, the English Parliament passed a series of Navigation Acts that regulated trade between England and its colonies.
a) The purpose was to make sure that only England would benefit from trade with its colonies.

2. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
b) Colonists were banned from trading directly with other European nations or their colonies.
c) The Navigation Acts also listed certain products, such as cotton and tobacco, that colonial merchants could ship only to England.
3. The Navigation Acts also helped the colonies.
a) Encouraged ship building in New England.
b) Colonial merchants did not have to compete with foreign merchants.
4. Many colonists resented the Navigation Acts.
a) Colonists viewed the acts as a way to favor English merchants.

3. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
B. Trading Across the Atlantic
1. The colonies produced a wide variety of goods.
a) New England merchants, nicknamed Yankees, dominated colonial trade.
b) Yankees had a reputation for being clever and hardworking, and profiting from any deal.
2. A colonial trade route known as the triangular trade formed a triangle between New England, Africa, and the West Indies.
a) New England rum, guns, gunpowder, cloth, and tools  West Africa.

4. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
b) West African slaves  the West Indies
c) West Indies molasses and sugar  New England to make rum to be sold in Europe and Africa.
3. Many New Englanders became wealthy from the triangular trade.
a) Sometimes the Navigation Acts were disobeyed and English merchants bought molasses and sugar from the Spanish West Indies.
C. The Foundations of Representative Government
1. All of the colonies gained a legislature, or a group of people who have the power to make laws, soon after they were founded.
a) Most colonial legislatures had an upper house and a lower house.

5. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
b) The upper house was made up of advisers appointed by the governor.
2. The lower house was an elected assembly.
a) It approved laws and protected the rights of the citizens.
b) Had the power to reject taxes or budget items asked for by the governor.
c) This is known as “the power of the purse”.
3. Each colony had its own rules about who could vote.
a) By the 1720s, all of the English colonies restricted the right to vote to white Christian men over the age of 21.

6. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
b) Of these people only property owners could vote because it was thought property owners knew what was best for the colony.
4. The English colonies followed English common law.
a) Laws develop from the past rulings of judges.
b) Like cases should be treated alike.
5. In the 1760s, William Blackstone published a four-volume book, Commentaries on the Laws of England.
a) The entire history of English law was reviewed.

7. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
b) He believed that English common law was the best and highest form of law.
c) His ideas of common law took hold in the colonies and was a body of laws independent of the acts of Parliament.
6. Colonists took great pride in their elected assemblies and valued the rights that the Magna Carta gave them.
7. Colonists won more rights during the Glorious Rebellion of 1688.
a) Parliament removed King James II from the throne and asked William & Mary of the Netherlands to rule.

8. 2.7 Colonial Trade & Government
b) In return of Parliament’s support, William & Mary signed the English Bill of Rights in 1689.
c) A bill of rights is a written list of freedoms the government promises to protect.
d) Trial by jury, consent of the public to raise taxes or armies, strengthened representative governments.
8. Women still did not have the same rights as men.
a) Married women had fewer rights than single or widowed women.
9. African and Native Americans had few to no rights.