Mercantalism essays

Mercantalism essays The Spanish, the Dutch, the French, and the English all practiced mercantilism. A term meaning that the worlds wealth was finite and that only one nation could grow rich if another one failed. A nation had to extract more gold from a foreign land and export as little as possible to other nations. But there were significant differences that existed in the colonies established in the New World by the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, and the English. In 1580, Spain came under control of Brazil. This colony was substantially different from the English colonies that were to be established later in the 17th century. The monarchy extended its authority power the entire way to the local communities in the colonies. The colonists didnt have much opportunity to establish political institutions separate from the mother country. Also, the Spanish were much more successful in extracting the silver and gold compared to the British. However, while the extraction of the riches was taking place, agriculture and trade was not being tended to. Another significant dissimilarity is that while the English, Dutch and French yearned to established fixed colonies for family life, the Spanish did the opposite by ruling the colony but not providing or encourage people from Spain to move and live there. The British believed in the principals of mercantilism as much as the French, the Dutch and the Spanish did and Englands mercantilistic program was its successful wool trade which lasted until around 1550 where the its market failed. The forming of new colonies was their solution to that problem. The colonies that were established by the British were a place to create markets for goods and also to settle disputes with the growing poverty and unemployment rate because of the population boom. Besides the economic motives that existed in the colonies, there was also religion in the colonies. The colonies that the British formed w...