Colonial Commerce I: Mercantilism and The Plantation Economy

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
         1. The Scots and the French Tobacco Monopoly
         2. A More Sophisticated Commercial System
            1. Central Warehouses
            2. Direct Dealings With Interior Farmers--The Scottish Country Store
         3. Commerce Still in the Hands of Outsiders
   2. A Variant System--Carolina and Charles Town (Charleston)