Overview Chapter Sixteen
By the eighteenth century, a competition emerged among a number of European states for
control over various parts of Europe, and over colonies in the Americas and around the world.
Though not clearly understood or fully defined until the end of the eighteenth century,
mercantilism emerged as the governing principle between home states and their colonies
through which Spain, France, and England attempted to maintain a favorable balance of trade.
For England and France in particular, competition in trade arising from mercantilism led to
military confrontation. New European diplomatic alliances responded to Prussia’s challenge to
Austria in central Europe. When the Seven Years’ War and French and Indian Wars ended in
1763, Austria and France were seriously weakened, while Prussia placed itself among the
great powers of Europe. The greatest gains went to Britain, but in its successful bid for North
American supremacy lay the seeds of the struggle for American independence. The taxation
necessary in Great Britain and her North American possessions to pay for the wars and for the
enlarged costs of administering the newly won territories was a direct and fundamental cause
of the American revolt against Great Britain. The Americans simply could not accept
Parliament’s interpretation of what was now necessary for the British Empire. By employing
arguments that had influenced British political thought over the previous century, and by
steadfastly refusing to submit to British authority, the colonies marshaled public opinion
against George III’s government, which in turn effectively declared war. Thomas Paine’s
Common Sense (1775) expressed a new concept of independence, which the Declaration of
Independence built upon the following year. After eight years of intermittent fighting, Britain
recognized the independence of its seaboard colonies as the United States of America, which
had already become and would remain for some decades a laboratory for experiments in
government reflecting the Enlightenment and the unique character of American frontier life.
The ideas these experiments produced became a key part of the Western heritage. A far more
problematic element of the Western heritage, slavery, was essential to the plantation system
that developed in the Atlantic economy. Africans were forcibly transported to the New World,
especially along the Atlantic seaboard from the Chesapeake Bay in North America south to
Brazil, to provide the uncompensated labor on which the production of sugar, cotton, and
other products depended.
After reading this chapter you should understand:
 Europe’s concept of mercantilism and empire-building.
 The nature and decline of Spain’s vast colonial empire in the Americas.
 The structure of slavery in the Americas, and the role of slave labor in the Atlantic
economy's plantation system.
 The wars in Europe and the colonies, particularly the Seven Years’ War.
 The conflict between Britain and its colonies, and its outcome in the War of American
Independence.
European Interactions
There have been four stages in Europe's interactions with the rest of the world: 1) by the end
of the seventeenth century, discovery and settlement of the New World, introduction of the
transatlantic plantation economy, and market penetration of Southeast Asia; 2) by the 1820s,
mercantile empires, with resulting competition among European powers, and independence in
most of the Americas; 3) in the nineteenth century, formal empires ruled directly by Europe;
and 4) by the late twentieth century, decolonization. Prior to colonial independence,
Europeans generally treated indigenous peoples as inferior. Ships and guns gave Europeans
insurmountable advantages. This chapter covers the mercantile period.
Mercantilism
Mercantilism, an economic theory based on the economy of scarcity, assumed that the growth
of one nation came at the expense of another. The goal of the mercantile system was for each
European power to monopolize trade with its colonies, with the profits – in the form of gold
and silver bullion – enriching each ruling country. Colonial rivalries could grow into conflicts
between European nations. French-British rivalry was intense in the West Indies and in India.
Dutch power in what is now Indonesia was acknowledged by other Europeans.
Spain
Spain administered her colonies as if they existed to supply precious metals to Spain and,
later, to increase Spanish wealth and power through trade. Spain attempted to impose
monopolistic control on trade with the colonies by strictly restricting the American ports to
which Spanish ships could sail and outlawing any other shipping. Smugglers and buccaneers,
however, always found ways to carry out their work. The political system under which the
Spanish colonies were administered concentrated power in the crown; local officials were
appointed through royal patronage. In 1700, when the French Bourbon king Philip V took the
Spanish throne, he attempted to introduce effective French administrative techniques to
Spain's empire. Spain was defeated in Europe's mid-eighteenth century wars, and King
Charles III tried to use imperial reform and colonial trade liberalization to bolster Spain's
economy. He was somewhat successful in the immediate term, but his actions also stoked
resentments that would soon erupt into colonial rebellion.
Slavery
The trans-Atlantic plantation economy created social, political, and production systems unlike
any others in world history. Although slavery was practiced in many other times and places,
the extent to which the plantation economy depended on slave labor made it unique. The
racist element in the justification for the trade in black African human beings left a cultural
legacy that is still with us. The sheer volume and economic impact of the slave trade itself,
and the goods produced by slave labor, make slavery one of the most important elements in
the history of the Americas, and an important factor in the histories of Europe and of Africa as
well.
Eighteenth Century Wars
In the mid-eighteenth century, the European state system encouraged warfare. Monarchs
believed they could use war to further their own ends without risking the lives of their subjects
or the stability of their societies. Overseas empires, and central and eastern Europe, were the
objects of repeated international rivalries. The 1739 British-Spanish conflict, known as the
"War of Jenkins' Ear," became the opening salvo in a period of European warfare that lasted
until 1815. Prussia, Austria, France, and other European nations fought wars that spilled over
into colonial conflicts. In the course of these wars, Maria Teresa preserved the Habsburg
Empire, at the cost of power-sharing with the nobility and with the Hungarian Magyars.
Frederick II saved Prussia, becoming "Frederick the Great." Britain's secretary of state William
Pitt the Elder set his country on the path to the global dominance it would enjoy for the next
century and a half by deploying unprecedented numbers of troops into colonial battlefields.
American Revolution
The Treaty of Paris of 1763, ending the Seven Years' War, left Britain with the problem of
financing its empire, and the problem of administering vast new North American territories.
Starting in 1764, Britain passed a series of taxes on the American colonies that were often
even lower than existing taxes, but that Britain intended to collect more aggressively. In each
case, American resistance led Britain to rescind most of the legislation. Tensions increased. By
1776, the colonists' Continental Congress declared independence from Britain. France and
Spain entered the war as American allies, and the Americans' victory was ratified at the 1783
Treaty of Paris. Through this period, Britain's King George III had alienated Whigs and
convinced radical political theorists that he wanted to impose tyranny. The writings and
examples of John Wilkes in Britain, and the revolutionaries in America, provided a new
vocabulary and models of liberty and sovereign government.