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England:

Theory of Global Commerce/Colonization: -From the 15th to the 17th century, the theory of mercantilism dominated England’s economy. Mercantilism basically means that government controls foreign trade to ensure the prosperity and military security of the state. Peaking around 1340-1789, mercantilism was the cause of frequent wars as well as colonial expansion. Under this doctrine, British government partnered with its merchants to increase political power and private wealth. The merchants were protected by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries to maximize exports and minimize imports to the realm. Mercantilism aimed to run trade surpluses so that gold and silver would pour into London. In order to protect their trade and colonies, English government funded a strong Royal Navy. This military advantage also threatened other colonies and allowed England to seize New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664. Once England took control of colonies, laws and regulations were placed to utilize their resources and limit trade with foreign merchants. The Navigation Acts expelled foreign merchants from England’s domestic trade network, and colonies under British control could only produce raw materials and could only trade with Britain. These strict regulations strongly influenced the American Revolution.

Areas Colonized or Conquered: England alone established colonies on the North American East coast, the Canadian west coast, India, China, large pieces of Africa, Australia, small parts of South America and Central America, and the East and West Indies.

Biography: -June 6th, 1659. Today we sailed through the red sea, in hopes of reaching the indian ocean within the summer. This is a far trek, but worth it for our ship and it's men in the end. The Dutch East India company is doing much better in all aspects that our company. But with group efforts, we pray that we will prevail and reach even with them. Our stops include the only three that we are currently trading with. These consist of Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. We hear that the Portuguese have occupied these waters, but with our navel front, we feel very level headed about the expedition.

-June 17th, 1659. We have reached India successfully, battling hard with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. Convincing Mughal rulers to let us trade was difficult at first but then later set in stone. Spices are not our first priority nowadays, but cotton. We hope that England and colonies in the Americas will find benefit to the cotton as we do.

Primary Sources: Indian Textiles

Portuguese Navel Ships

Map of English Merchants travels:



No maps were found upon the travels of the English. But the route they typically took was from England to India by taking the suez canal and the red sea, instead of the atlantic to the indian ocean. This was was much faster and much less mileage.

During the early 1600s, us merchants created the English Migratory Fishing and Trade indistry on the island of Newfoundland, a island now found of the coast of Canada. During this time us "Western adventurers" traded with the rest of Europe, and became quite a large company. At one point around 1620 we had atleast 300 ships traveling to Newfoundland to fish. Because we were merchants from England we made England quite welthy. Other contries also played a part in the Newfoundlant trade such as spain, france, and portugal. It was no easy task trying to devide the huge fishery up, the conflicts between us English mirchants and the merchants of the other contries sparked big wars between us. The two main contries who engaged in war were france and England, these two contries controled the most of the Fishary. Do to the frequent wars between the various contries we the merchants sailing to Newfoundland to fish, became huge targets for opposing navys to attack.





As the British Empire grew, its demand for goods grew also. After the drak ages, trade was becoming prominent again. To keep up with the world, the British Empire founded a company to do the trading for them; it was called the East India Company. They did not extract as much as other kingdoms did from the places they conquered. They traded with Native Americans for fur; in return they gave them finished products like guns, pots and alcohol. Every colonizing empire at this point of time saw North America as a poor territory; the British did not extract resources from these lands. Instead, they invested in these areas and put taxes on everything. The east India trading company also conquered some parts of India where they traded and extracted mostly spices and tea. Mostly they traded with the Mughal Empire. The British extracted slaves from Africa. Instead of getting into Africa abducting people, they bought slaves from local tribes. They also wanted to get some of the wealth that Asia possessed; they got Chinese silk, spices from south east Asia and gems from India.
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__//**TIME LINE**//__
 * ** DATE ** || ** Event ** ||
 * ** 55 BC- 410 CE ** || Roman England ||
 * ** 450-779 CE ** || Anglo Saxon England ||
 * ** 793-900s ** || Viking Invasions ||
 * ** 1066 ** || Battle of Hastings, William the conqueror becomes king of England ||
 * ** 1167 ** || Oxford university is founded ||
 * ** 1215 ** || The magna Carta is signed by king John. ||
 * ** 1282-83 ** || King Edward conquers Wales. ||
 * ** 1337-1453 ** || Hundred year war ||
 * ** 1348-1349 ** || Black death arrives and kills ½ of the population. ||
 * ** 1497 ** || John Cabot sails from Bristol and discovers North America. ||
 * ** 1570 ** || Francis Drake sets sail for his first voyage to the West Indies. ||
 * ** 1588 ** || The English fleet destroys the Spanish Armada. ||
 * ** 1600 ** || The East India company is formed. ||
 * ** 1612 ** || Battle of Swally, British fleet defeats a Portugese fleet to gain a foothold in India. ||
 * ** 1647 ** || The company had 23 factories ||
 * ** 1686-1690 ** || Childs war. East company loses to Mughal empire and has to pay a huge amount of money to king Aurangzeb. ||
 * ** 1607 ** || Jamestown is founded ||
 * ** 1620 ** || Pilgrims began voyage to America aboard the Mayflower. ||
 * ** 1652 ** || Tea is introduced to England ||
 * ** 1711 ** || The company is given permission to enter China to trade tea and silver. ||
 * ** 1756-1763 ** || The seven years war. British armies defeated French forces. ||
 * ** 1757 ** || British forces captureBengal. ||
 * ** 1762 ** || England conquers Manila from Spain. ||
 * ** 1773 ** || Tea Act ||