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РЕГИСТРАЦИЯ ЭКСКУРСИЯ

18. Colonial Expansion. The Formation of the British Empire.

Britain already controlled many overseas areas by the 18th century. For more than 100 years English explorers had ventured east and west in search of raw materials, luxury goods, and trading partners. The eastern coast of Canada gave the British access to rich fishing grounds, New England provided timber for the Royal Navy, the southern American colonies exported tobacco, and the West Indies produced sugar and molasses. From Asia came coffee, tea, spices, and richly colored cotton cloth. From western Africa came slaves who were sent to work on plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean.
The first British Empire sprang from the enterprises of individuals and government-sponsored trading companies. They risked money, ships, and lives to establish England’s presence around the world. The British government created royal monopolies—private companies to whom the monarch granted exclusive rights to trade in a particular region or field of commerce. For example, the East India Company had a monopoly to trade in the east, the Royal African Company to enter the slave trade, and the Hudson’s Bay Company to exploit the fisheries of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The lands that these companies claimed became possessions of the Crown, and investors bought shares in successful companies on the London Stock Exchange.
The most important of Britain’s imperial possessions, however, were not trading posts but settled colonies in the Americas. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, settlers established communities for religious reasons; in Virginia and Barbados, farmers, tradespeople, and merchants were in search of economic opportunity. As a result of successful wars with The Netherlands and Spain, England acquired New York and Jamaica, both thriving settlements. Prosperous cities sprang up along the eastern seaboard of North America in imitation of the towns of Britain. England’s colonies grew rapidly. The tens of thousands of settlers in the mainland North American colonies in 1650 grew to 1.2 million inhabitants by 1750.
The Navigation Act of 1651 regulated trade between England and its colonial outposts. The act followed an economic philosophy known as mercantilism. Under this system, governments regulated economic activities by increasing exports and limiting foreign imports in an effort to generate wealth. According to the theory of mercantilism, the value of colonies lay in their natural resources, which could be transported to Britain and converted into exportable products. The Navigation Act benefited British merchants by restricting the types of products produced in the colonies, mandating that only British ships transport products to and from the colonies, and prohibiting direct trade between the colonies and other nations. Mercantile policies made Britain the greatest center of trade in the world. 

 


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