Hello and welcome to this online lesson. My name is Mr. Hovind and today we are going to take a brief look at mercantilism and the Navigation Acts. So, last time we were together we talked about the French and Indian War and the fact that during the French and Indian War the British spent a lot of money in order to defeat the French and their native allies and then take over different parts of North America. So, now the war is over and the British have to pay off all of this debt from the French and Indian War. Let's go ahead and get started.
So it's really important before we get into the mercantilism and navigation acts is to understand the difference between import and export. To import something is to bring goods into the port of a country. So it's anything that's brought into a country, any goods. So any like food, vegetables, materials to make things, that's brought into a country. That's known as an import.
An export is a good that is sent out of a country to a different market. So anything exported is something that's like... grown or dug up or mined here in the United States and would be exported to another country. So import, export. Import to bring goods into the port of a country.
Export to send goods from a country to a different market. Moving on. So mercantilism.
It's an economic philosophy. Again, Great Britain needed to pay off all the debts from the French and Indian War. So they developed this concept of mercantilism. And mercantilism is a philosophy where colonies exist for the profit of them.
mother country. Yes, if you can see in the picture here, you've got all the colonies that have gold and silver, they have food stuff, they have raw materials, and the mother country is sitting there at the table waiting to be served. Colonies are a source of raw materials and natural resources for the mother country. Colonies are markets for manufactured products coming from the mother country.
So under mercantilism, when goods are sent or raw materials are dug up... they're sent to the mother country mother country sends back the finished product the mother country seeks to to become wealthy by exporting more than it imports so it imports the raw materials and it exports the finished goods to other countries to make money so that's kind of how mercantilism works but let's look at it a little bit deeper so the mercantilism system you have this image on your homework you have the 13 colonies over here and on this side you've got great britain and down here's the king we'll get to him in a little bit so Mercantilism. You've got raw materials like cotton, tobacco, iron, etc. Things that are dug up, things that are mined, things that are farmed. Those are the raw materials.
They're sent over to Great Britain. And in turn, Great Britain processes those products, creates manufactured products, taxes them, and sends them back to the colonies in order to make money. So all goods imported to America had to come from British ports. where extra taxes were placed on manufacturers goods as well as tea and spices from the east indies so under this mercantilist system manufactured goods only could come from great britain they were also taxed so the colonists are paying a huge much more money to pay off britain's debt and the king oh sitting in the corner with was thinking that oh look at this mercantilism gonna make me bloody rich so mercantilism makes the king makes the royalty bloody rich it makes britain bloody rich But here's the issue.
You're taxing the colonies and you're not allowing them to have any representation in the government. So things are going to start getting a little messy. So in order to enforce this idea of mercantilism, the British established these Navigation Acts.
And the Navigation Acts were enforced to protect British trade. Colonies could only ship their goods using British ships. So no American goods.
could be shipped with American goods you couldn't go to Spain you couldn't go to the Netherlands you couldn't go anywhere else could go to France you had to use just a British ship to move around your goods also colonies can only import goods like I said before from Great Britain so the only time colonies can get anything new into their country or finished products has to come from Great Britain also all those finished goods they're taxed by Great Britain so they cost a ton of money they keep taxing keep that in mind it's really important Great Britain takes those manufactured goods that they take from the raw materials in the new world. They tax the heck out of them. They send them back and make them pay a huge inflated price. Finally, colonies must produce goods that the British need. They need to be growing and mining what the British need to make those manufactured goods, send them around the world, make money at the expense of the colonies.
Hopefully that point is getting through. The colonies are kind of getting the raw end of the deal here. And the effects of mercantilism and navigation acts.
Colonists resented this control and these laws. Again, they had to send all of their hard-earned money, excuse me, all of their hard-farmed, hard-mined raw materials to Great Britain. They get almost no money with that.
Almost none. Whatsoever. Nada.
Then, those manufactured goods are sent back with a tax to the New World. Those people have to pay the tax plus the price, which is going to put them in debt, but Britain controls them. Taxation without representation.
Cause of problems leading into the Revolutionary War. Colonies felt their rights had been threatened, and Britain gained much power and wealth. Remember, the king thinking, I'm going to become bloody rich.
So. That about wraps things up for today, and we'll see you next time.