The Commercial Revolution
Trade, Mercantilism, and War
Definition
• A rapid increase in global trade occurring in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries involving
new goods, new techniques, and new
institutions.
Mercantilism
• 1. Real wealth is specie (i.e.,
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hard money, gold and silver)
2. There is a natural scarcity of
resources in the world.
3. Nations must maximize their
exports and minimize their
imports.
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Acquire colonies
Set up trade monopolies
Build navies/merchant marine
Fight trade and colonial wars
Erect high tariffs
Build roads, canals, and subsidize
key industries
The Rise of the Dutch
• Geographic—ideal location, center of textiles,
protection from attack (dikes).
• Economic—scientific agriculture, institutions
(Bank of Amster., joint-stock comps., entrepot
system), financial leaders, fluyts, rejected
mercantilism
• Social—mercantile elite, bourgeois influence,
tolerant, Calvinist frugality
• Political—decentralized authority, representative
institutions (Estates-General)
“An Embarrassment of Riches”:
New Goods
• Cloth—silks, cotton,
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calicoes
Spices—pepper,
mace, nutmeg,
cinnamon, saffron,
etc.
Foods—sugar, tea,
coffee, rum, molasses
“The Inhuman Trade”
• Begun by
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Portuguese in 15th
century
Taken over by
Dutch
Most went to New
World
“Middle Passage”
Sugar plantations
Mixing of cultures
Racism
“The Tasty and Bitter Fruits”
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Improved diet, standard of living, life expectancy
Increase in size and power of middle class
More resources for state in power drive
Rise of global economy and geopolitics, European
exploitation/dominance
Constant but limited warfare, 1600-1763
Shift in balance of power to those nations that most efficiently
organized resources
Commercial Wars, 1600-1763
• Anglo-Dutch Naval Wars,
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1652-74
Louis’s Dutch Wars, 166779
Nine Years War (League of
Augsburg), 1688-97
– Treaty of Ryswick
– Role of William III
• War of Spanish
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Succession, 1701-14
War of Jenkins Ear, 173944