Chapter 19: The Expansion of Europe in the 18th Century
I.
Many important economic and demographic changes occurred in Europe during the 17th and 18th
centuries that gave rise to the Industrial Revolution.
A. An Agricultural Revolution occurred in Europe during the late 17th and 18th century.
1. The use of more complex systems of crop rotation increase cultivation.
2. Gain crops were alternated with nitrogen- storing crops.
3. The most prevalent system of land usage in Europe in the early modern era was
known as the open field system.
a. The most persistent problem with the open field system was soil depletion.
b. The major drawback of the open-field (three field) agricultural system was the
every year a substantial portion of the land was not planted (fallow).
c. Poor women would go through the fields to collect single grains that fell to the
ground during the harvest (gleaning).
i. This was the subject of Millet’s masterpiece, which showed the precarious
nature of agrarian life.
4. The enclosure movement meant an end to common lands and to the independence of
the rural poor who relied them to survive.
a. “Enclosing” the common farmland, particularly in England, ended the open
field system.
b. The key to the Agricultural Revolution was the elimination of fallow land.
c. The enclosure of common lands did make the rural poor entirely dependent on
wage labor and alms, but did not drive down peasant living standards as a
whole.
B. Britain and the Low Countries were the leaders in the Agricultural Revolution.
1. The Agricultural Revolution was first manifested in the Low Countries.
a. The Dutch advantage was due to a large urbanized population.
2. Charles Townsend was one of he pioneers of English Agricultural Revolution.
a. He advocated scientific farming.
3. Jethro Tull gained fame in experimental agricultural and animal husbandry.
a. His contributions were the product of empirical research.
4. Cornelius Vermuyden was a Dutch land reclamation expert.
5. The social group upon which the success of the English Agricultural Revolution
depended was the tenant farmers.
6. All of the following contributed to increased agricultural production in western
Europe in the 17th and 18th century:
a. The introduction of new crops to rotate, such as turnips, potatoes, and clover
b. Selective breeding of livestock.
c. Drainage of marshlands.
d. Increased use of fertilizer due to the increased numbers of livestock, which
provided more manure.
II.
The Beginning of the Population Explosion
A. There were limitations on population growth up to about the year 1700.
1. Before 1700, the total European population followed an irregular cycle of slow
growth.
2. Famine, disease, and war were the usual checks on growth.
3. Europe’s population growth was kept fairly low.
B. A new pattern of growth emerged in the 18th century.
1. Fewer deaths occurred, in part due to the disappearance of the plague because of the
brown rat’s displacement of the black rat from ecological niches in Europe.
2. Advances in medicine did a little to decrease the death rate.
3. Improved sanitation promoted better public health.
4. Historians primarily attribute the “population explosion” to a more abundant food
supply: An increase in the food supply meant fewer famines and epidemics.
C. Early public health measures that may have helped reduce the death rates in 18th century
Europe included:
1. Drainage of swamps
2. Inoculation against smallpox in England
3. Improved urban sewage systems.
4. Cleaner water supplies
D. The expansion of Europe in the 18th century featured the following:
1. Growing population
2. Increased world trade
3. Expansion of agriculture
4. Adoption of new food crops from the New World.
III.
The Growth of the Cottage Industry
A. The rural poor performed manufacturing work.
1. Amongst them were “spinsters,” a widowed or unmarried woman who spun cloth for
a living.
B. This cottage industry began to challenge the urban craft industry.
C. The putting-out system involved merchant-capitalists providing raw materials to poor rural
families who, in turn, produced cloth in their homes.
1. The textile industry in England was an example of the putting-out system.
2. Probably the most important competitive advantage of the putting-out system was its
cheap labor cost.
a. For cottage workers, “holy Monday” was a day of relaxation after they had been
paid for their work on the previous Sunday.
3. There were shortcomings of putting-out systems from the capitals’ point of view.
a. Bottlenecks in the production process
b. Poor quality control
c. Dispute with workers over weights of materials delivered and the quality of the
cloth produced.
d. Difficulty making workers produce steadily
IV.
Building the Atlantic Economy
A. English mercantilism was characterized by the government regulations that served the interests
both of the state and private individuals. Mercantilism in other European countries generally
served only state interests.
1. The Navigation Acts of 1651- 1663 were a form of economic warfare again Dutch
domination of Atlantic shipping. They gave British merchants and ship owners a near
monopoly on trade with Britain’s North American colonies.
a. Virginia plantation owners and England merchants were both protected and
restricted by the mercantile system.
b. But they were also the factor that most limited the growth of industry in the
British colonies: They restricted manufacturing in the colonies.
2. After defeating the Dutch, England fought a series of wars with France for maritime
domination of the world.
a. War of the Spanish Succession (1701- 1713)
i. After this war, Britain was an important trading partner with Creole
merchants.
ii. The British also gained control of the asiento: The West African slave trade.
b. War of the Austrian Succession (1740- 1748)
c. The Seven Years’ War (1756- 1763) ended with Britain winning full control
over India and North America.
i. This war was decisive round in the colonial conflict between England and
France.
ii. The British won the American component of the war (also known as the
French and Indian War) because they diverted men and money from
Europe to the American theater of war.
3. In Britain’s North American colonies cheap land and scarce labor resulted in the
following:
a. Rapid increase in the colonial population in the 18th century.
b. Import of African slaves to tobacco plantations in the southern colonies.
i. Plantations in the Virginia lowlands, by 1730 were worked entirely by
African slaves.
ii. A board- based campaign to abolish slavery began in Britain after 1775.
c. Growing prosperity for British colonists.
i. On the eve of the American Revolution, the average standard of living in the
British colonies was the highest in the world.
d. By 1770s, the bulk of British foreign trade was with the British colonial empire.
B. Revival in Colonial Latin America
1. Under Philip V (r. 1700- 1746) Spain recovered economically and successfully
defended her American empire.
2. Raising silver exports in the 18th century helped create a class of wealthy Creole
(American born white) merchants.
3. Creole estate owners dominated much of the pleasant population through debt
peonage, really a form of serfdom.
C. Adam Smith challenged mercantilist ideas with his defense of free trade and his argument for
keeping government interference in the economy to a minimum (The Wealth of Nations
[1776])
1. According to him, harmony and progress would result from the pursuit of self-interest
in a competitive market.
2. Smith argues that government should limit itself to “only three duties”
a. Provide defense against foreign invasion
b. Maintain civil order with courts and police protection
c. Sponsor certain indispensable public works and institutions that could never
adequately profit private investors.