Economic Gains of England from Colonization

1. Gains from North America Inspired by the riches of Spanish colonies, the first Englishmen to settle permanently in America hoped for some of the same rich discoveries when they established their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. The main purpose of this colony was the hope of finding gold or the possibility of finding a passage through the Americas to the Indies. Tobacco later became a cash crop for export and the sustaining economic driver of Virginia and nearby colonies like Maryland. In the few small cities and among the larger plantations of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, some necessities and virtually all luxuries were imported in return for tobacco, rice, and indigo (blue dye) exports. Early colonial prosperity also resulted from trapping and trading in furs. In addition, fishing was a primary source of wealth in Massachusetts. But throughout the colonies, people lived primarily on small farms and were self-sufficient. Supportive industries developed as the colonies grew. A variety of specialized sawmills and gristmills appeared. Colonists established shipyards to build fishing fleets and, in time, trading vessels. They also built small iron forges. By the 18th century, regional patterns of development had become clear: the New England colonies relied on shipbuilding and sailing to generate wealth; plantations (many using slave labor) in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas grew tobacco, rice, and indigo; and the middle colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware shipped general crops and furs. Except for slaves, standards of living were generally high -- higher, in fact, than in England itself. Because English investors had withdrawn, the field was open to entrepreneurs among the colonists. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_colonization_of_the_Americas http://economics.about.com/od/useconomichistory/a/colonization.htm 2. Gains from India The protection of the warehouses to store the goods they traded in served as a good excuse to build forts and maintain armies at such centers. The British took the golden opportunity to benefit from the ongoing internal quarrels among kingdoms and helped one king fight another. They trained Indian soldiers and employed them in their army. Gradually the British succeeded in capturing very large parts of India. They made treaties with kings who accepted the authority of the British and very cleverly managed to collect huge wealth from them and the people of India. The weavers of fine cottons and silks were compelled to sell their cloth only to British traders at prices decided by them. Also, no duty was charged on British goods coming to India. On the other hand, Indian exports to Britain were subjected to high imported duty. The India cottage industry also suffered at the hands of the British traders. The British by now had started huge cotton textile mills in England for which a lot of cotton was needed, so cotton was purchased

here at a very low price and sent to England and in return huge quantities of cloth was sold in India. The result was that the big weaver class in India became unemployed. People had to buy costlier British cloth. Such were the ways of the British to amass wealth in India to be sent back to England. The Indians were also traded as slaves to other British colonies. The British introduced modern technology with the intention to sell manufactured goods like textile and machines for profit. In the process of trying to make profit and exploiting India, the British of course did benefit India. They built railways, Law Courts, civil services, transport systems, factories, schools and universities to introduce western ideas and to incorporate the idea of democracy. Missionaries came to India and spread Christianity. This was all done in the name of Britains economy. Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/17282/history.html 3. Gains from Africa Africas resources were left largely untouched by natives so there were large supplies of easily accessible resources, including plenty of gold and diamond. These mineral deposits were so valuable that Britain fought a war with the Boers mainly so they could mine the gold and diamonds on Boer land. Africa had a cheap, untapped labor pool that would work long hours for little money. This increased the profitability of every British Industry in Africa. It also allowed Britain to outsource industries, like the production of rubber. England made cheap rubber plants near the Congo River after they imported rubber trees from the Amazon. Many of these rubber plantations primarily used nearly cost free forced labor. Essentially the British were able to sell the cheap manufactured goods to the populations in Africa. In Africa all of the raw goods would be shipped to England and processed. Then it would all be shipped back in the form of clothes or pots and pans. This created a poor cycle for Africa but a profitable one for England. Even though Englands economy benefitted from African imperialism, England destroyed Africas economy and depleted their resources out of greed.

The Slave Trade

Patterns of world trade came increasingly dominated by western routes developed for the lucrative West Indian sugar industry and the demand for slaves from Africa to work the plantation in the Caribbean. Here England eventually assumed the lead. The cultivation of sugar and tobacco depended on the slave labor, and as demand for those products increased, so did the traffic in black slaves, without whose labor those products could not be harvested. At the height of the Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century, 6 million blacks were shipped across the Atlantic, out of a total of over 9 million for the entire history of the trade. About 35% went to English and French Caribbean plantations.1 The slave trade was open to both the government and private entrepreneurs who operated ports on the West African coast. Traders
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R. Ergang. Europe from the Renaissance to the Waterloo. D.C. Heath & Company.

exchanged cheap Indian cloth, metal goods, rums and firearms with African slave merchants in return for their human cargo. Already degraded by their capture at the hand of rival tribes, blacks were packed by the hundreds into the holds of slave ships for the gruesome journey across the Atlantic. Shackled to the decks, without sanitary facilities, the blacks suffered horribly the mortality rate remained at about 10-11%. Since traders had to invest 10 per slave, they ensured that the consignment would reach its destination in good enough shape to be sold for a profit.9 The trade was risky and competition was high. Yet profits were as much as 300%. Demand for slaves remained constant throughout the 18th century. By the 1780s, there were 200,000 slaves on the largest English plantation island in Jamaica.9 The number reflects the expanding world market for slave-grown crops. As long as there was a market for the crops cultivated by slaves and the economy relied upon slave labor, governments remained unwilling to halt the system. Not until the very end of the 18th century did Europe and began to protest the ghastly trade. Public pressure helped put an end to the trade in England in 1807, and to slavery itself in British colonies in 1833.9 The slave trade was an integral part of the history of the dramatic rise of England. Foreign trade during this period increased in value for 10 million to 40 million.9 This suggests the degree to which statecraft and public enterprise were bound to each other. if merchants depended on their government to provide a navy to protect and defend their overseas investments, governments depended equally on entrepreneurship, not only to generate money to build ships, but to sustain the trade upon which national power had come to rely so heavily.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/historicalawesomeness21gwr/economic-reasons-for-britishimperialism-in-africa