Mercantilism Essay

Mercantilism. This was an idea that many European countries in the 1700s used to grow themselves. However, the rebellion of the colonies of Britain, a European country, was likely due to mercantilism. Mercantilism is the belief that more land means more money means more wealth means more power. In order to achieve this, countries worked to develop the favorable balance of trade in which they had more exports than imports. Although mercantilism provided many benefits at the time, It is also likely that it contributed to the rebellion of Britain’s colonies because colonists were unable to profit, they were seen as less than their mother country, and their ability to trade was heavily controlled by Britain
The first way that the colonies suffered at the hand of mercantilism was the fact that they were unable to make much of a profit. The diagram in Document One shows that the colonies get very little in exchange for all that they import. Especially considering the gold and silver they lose in the process. Also according to mercantilism and the diagram, a country’s wealth is largely based off of their collection of gold and silver. This means that when trading, with Britain, the colonies were losing wealth and gaining little. This lack of money to be made as a colonist likely
This is clearly conveyed through the map in Document Three. This map shows that the majority of the colonies trade was with Britain. This means that Britain was able to charge the colonists basically whatever they wanted because they had no competition. This lead to the colonists being overall taken advantage of by Britain in order for the country to comply with its mercantilism beliefs. Due to their lack of say in their trading, the colonists were likely to rebel against their mother country that was allowing them very little economic or financial