Colonial Commerce and Mercantilism

1. The Colonies as "Colonial"
2. The Economic Organization of the English/British Empire--Mercantilism
   1. Central Proposition--National Power Dependent on Favorable Balance of Trade
      1. Drawing in Gold and Silver
      2. Self-Sufficiency
   2. The Role of The Colonies
      1. Suppliers of Essential Commodities
         1. National Security--Naval Stores
         2. Essential Industrial Raw Materials--Indigo
         3. "Exotic" Goods for Export--Tobacco, Rice, Sugar
      2. Purchasers of Manufactured Goods From the "Mother Country"
      3. Prohibitions--The Navigation Acts
         1. No Competition With Productions of the Mother Country
            1. Manufactures
            2. English Farm Products
         2. English/British Monopoly on Trade Within the Empire
         3. Controls on Exports of "Enumerated Goods" (e.g. Tobacco, Rice, Indigo)
3. The Outlines of Colonial Commerce--The Plantation Districts
   1. The Chesapeake as Case Study
      1. Seventeenth Century--Direct Planter Ties to London
         1. The Consignment System--The London Factor as Ultimate Decision-Maker
         2. The Planter as Middleman
         3. Little Commercial Development--Slight Urbanization
      2. Eighteenth Century--The Rise of Glasgow
   2. A Variant System--Carolina and Charles Town (Charleston)
4. The New England Economy--Paying for Imports With Trade
   1. The Fish Trade to Southern Europe
   2. The West Indian Trade--The Sugar Economy
      1. High Demand for Imports:
         1. Slaves
         2. Food
         3. Livestock
         4. Lumber and Barrel Staves
      2. By-Products--Molasses (Rum)
   3. Impact
      1. A Wealthy Maritime Economy
      2. "Trickle-Down" Prosperity to Rural New England
      3. The First American Commercial Entrepreneurs
5. The Middle Colonies--The Breadbasket of the Empire
   1. Wheat and Livestock
      1. A Small-Farmer Staple--Pennsylvania as "The Best Poor Man's Country"
      2. A Magnet for Eighteenth-Century Immigrants
         1. Germany
         2. The "Celtic Fringe" of Britain
         3. New Englanders (Upstate New York)
      3. An Elaborate Marketing System
         1. Gathering Crops from Small Farmers--The Country Storekeeper
         2. Processing--Flour Milling, Baking, and Meat Packing
   2. Prosperity and Rising Demand--An Emerging Consumer Society
   3. A Spur to Urbanization--Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia
   4. An Expanding Urban Entrepreneurial Class--Philadelphia as a Magnet
      1. Merchants
      2. Artisans--Benjamin Franklin as the Prototype