English Colonial Expansion

• 1500s Spain and Portugal had huge empires

• England by the 1600 began to expand into the Americas and Asia

English Explores/Sea Dogs

• 1497-1498 John Cabot explored Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New England.

• England has a claim but will wait until the 1600s to develop

• Sea Dogs

Sea Dogs• Elizabeth I hired men

like Sir John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, and Sir Walter Raleigh

• Pirates who attacked Spanish and Portugal shipping

• England denied involvement but were involved in their plunder

• The Sea Dogs helped play a role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada

• They also helped build a little island into a sea faring nation state

English in India• With the Spanish threat eliminated in 1588

• Elizabeth expanded empire

• Granted charter to English East India Company

• The company slowly increased control over India –help weak local leader, defeat stronger leaders give gifts to bribe other leaders

• Company would rule India into the 1800s

England and North America

• Slow to explore – No Gold right away!!!!

• Hoped to find the Northwest Passage

• As England explored for NWP began to set up colonies

• The first permanent settlement was Jamestown, VA. • 1620 the second one was Plymouth (in Massachusetts)

• Most settlements for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

• Investors hope that settlements would make home country more self-sufficient

• Few made money on the early settlements

• Most people came for political and religious freedoms and to make a better life for them selves

• Used two types of servants in the colonies• Indentured servants and Slaves

• What set the British empire apart from all other empires was the use of Self Government

• MOST settlements had some form of representative body.

• True power still rested in England!!!!

Mercantilism

• "We must always take heed that we buy no more from strangers than we sell them, for so should we impoverish ourselves and enrich them."-Sir Thomas Smith

• Because of this idea England involved itself in making the colonies as profitable as possible

• Colonies job – supply home with raw materials and be a market for England to sell their goods.

• Started to pass laws to make sure the colonies continued to make $$$ for the Empire

• Examples of Mercantilist laws– Navigation Act of 1651• Certain products only sold to England• Only use British ships• Could not sell products to other countries

• These regulation lead = resentment and colonist not paying taxes to smuggling

• England did not heavily enforce these acts –PROBLEM?