World Studies

20.3 Notes

English Colonial Expansion

I. The Beginnings of the British Empire

A. Explorers and sea dogs

1. King Henry VII, hired John Cabot who explored the coasts of New

Foundland, Nova Scotia, and New England.2. Cabot’s voyages gave England its 1st

claim in North America.3. During Queen Elizabeth I’s reign an

adventurous group of English sea captains called sea dogs appeared.

a. Sir John Hawkinsb. Sir Francis Drakec. Sir Walter Raleigh

4. The sea dogs were best known for plundering foreign ships. Their repeated raids of Spanish ships from Africa greatly angered King Phillip II of Spain.

5. Philip protested to Queen Elizabeth, who claimed she was helpless to stop the raids. Secretly, she supported the sea dogs and

shared the profit from selling the slaves.

B. The British in India

1. Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to a trading group that came to be known as the British East India Company.

II. The British in America

** Henry Hudson was one of the first to search for the Northwest Passage.

A. British settlements.

1. As they searched for the NW passage, the British began settling along the eastern

coast of North America. Private companies founded the first of these colonial settlements.

a. Plymouth and Jamestown

2. Many settlers did not come voluntarily. As in other colonial empires, the English brought

slaves to their colonies.

3. Most European colonies were ruled from the home country. Self-gov’t set England’s empire apart. Most English colonies had some form of representative assembly. Official control remained firmly w/ England.

B. Mercantilism and the British Colonies

1. The British gov’t tried to make colonies more profitable. Its policy of mercantilism held that the colonies existed for the economic benefit of the home country. Mercantilists believed that for a nation to become wealthy, it must export more than it imports.

a. Raw materials and markets for home country.

2. One law required colonists to sell products only to England--- even if better prices were available in another country.

3. Colonists resented the English trade regulations, and found ways to evade the laws.

4. Until the mid- 1700s, the British gov’t did not try very hard to enforce its colonial trade

restrictions.

Define Mercantilism:

Effects of Mercantilism

Great Britain

GOLD

SILVER

RAW MATERIALS

MANUFACTURED GOODS