Colonial America -- Issues and Essay

Because under the first Navigation Act" all American exports had to pass through British ports, and other foreign traders were not allowed to come into American ports, the higher price of imports hurt most American consumers and American businesses. On page 16 Newton quotes from a book by Jeremy Atack and Peter Passell:

"Americans paid higher prices and earned smaller incomes than would have been the case if they had been free to use the cheapest shipping service and ship by the most direct routing…In short, the Navigation Acts force Americans to pay more and consume fewer imports and earn less and sell fewer exports" (Newton, p. 16, quoting from A New Economic View of American History: From Colonial Times to 1940). Was Britain the only colonial power that practiced the policy of mercantilism in the eighteenth century? Newton (17) writes that Spain, Holland and of course England put the squeeze on their colonies by imposing mercantilist policies.

In conclusion, it is easy all these years later to sit in judgment of the behavior of the British and of the American colonists during the early years of the country. But this is what history is all about, digging into issues and understanding why things happened the way they did. Slavery is a repugnant institution from any perspective, and that fact that the Virginia Colony needed slaves in order to plant and harvest the one crop that could make the Virginia Colony self-sufficient is no justification (in hindsight) for putting Africans to work in the tobacco fields. Further, what stands out in this paper is the terrible scourge that the Europeans brought with them in the form of diseases that the Native Americans had no resistance to. The fact that so many innocent natives were killed by diseases like smallpox is tragic, and every American no matter his or her ethnicity should feel a little guilty for the way this country was taken from the natives who had worthy civilizations and deserved to be allowed to flourish and thrive.

Works Cited

Kidder, David S., and Oppenheim, Noah D. (2007). The Intellectual Devotional: American

History: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Converse Confidently about

Our Nation's Past. Emmaus, PA: Rodale.

Murray, David. (1999). Spreading the Word in northeast America. In Spiritual Encounters:

Interactions Between Christianity and Native Religions in Colonial America, Eds.

N. Griffiths, and F. Cervantes. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Newton, Michael E. (2011). Angry Mobs and Founding Fathers: The Fight…