2. 13 – Commerce and Empire During the early 18th century, London replaced Amsterdam as Europe’s center of commerce and high finance. Great British, even during times of peace, annually spent an average of £6 million on it military and a majority of that went into the navy which became the material embodiment of British patriotism. The British military depended upon the flow of overseas commerce at least as much as trade depended upon protection from a powerful and versatile navy. 2/3 of the revenue came from taxes on commerce, usually customs and the excise taxes. As commerce became fundamental to British power, the American colonies became more important to the empire. During the mid 17th century, the Navigation Acts had initially brought economic pain upon the colonists, who at the time depended upon the Dutch credit, shippers, export markets, and manufactured imports. By the start of the 18th century, as the British surpassed the Dutch in manufacturing, shipping, and finance, the colonists could obtain better-quality goods from British suppliers at lower costs and on a more generous credit.
3. 14 - Trade During the 18th century, trade within the empire became increasingly complex by them developing a multilateral trading system that used bills of exchange drawn on London merchant firms to balance regional credits and debits. The improved flow of information and the complex patterns of commerce boosted economic growth in the colonies. In 1700 the colonial gross domestic product was only 4% of England’s but by 1770 that grew to 40%. The growing economy made free colonist able to enjoy higher standards of living than their counterparts in Europe. In 1774 in North America, free colonists probably averaged £13 annually per capita compared to £11 in Great Britain and £6 in France. That prosperity in part reflected the exploitation of African slaves who amounted to 1/5 of the population.
4. 14 - Africans During the 18th century, the British colonies imported 1.5 million slaves which were more than 3 times the number of free immigrants. While crippling Africa, the expanding slave trade and plantation agriculture jointly enriched the European empires, especially the British. The British slavers sold about half of their imports to their own colonies and the other half to the French and Spanish colonies, often illegally. The West Indies provided the greatest demand because of the sugar plantations. The slavers almost always bought their slaves from African middlemen usually the leading merchants and chiefs of the costal kingdoms. Some kingdoms, the Ashanti and Dahomey, became wealthy and powerful by salve-raiding their poorly armed neighbors. The shippers had 2 incompatible goals: to cram as many slaves aboard as possible and to get as many as possible across the Atlantic alive and healthy.
5. 17 – Horses and Guns Not until the late 17th century did the Indians acquire horses from the New Mexicans by a mixture of illicit trade and raiding. Common among the Indians of the southern plains by 1720, horses spread to the northern plains by 1750. Horses seemed like a godsend to a people who lived by buffalo hunting on the Great Plains which enabled them to become better fed, clothed, and housed. A horse could also haul more than a dog enabling the Indians to acquire and transport more possessions over long distances. In addition to promoting the hunting of buffalo, the horses facilitated the killing of people and during the 18th century, as they acquired horses, the Great Plains people also acquired firearms.
6. 18 – Balance of Power Skilled at guerrilla warfare, Indians dominated the forest passages between the rival empires. Even though the natives were divided into many tribes, they shared a broad interest in exploiting and perpetuating their strategic position between the French and the British colonies. By the mid 18th century, Indian leaders could see that the British were growing more numerous and powerful than the French which emboldened the British to behave more arrogantly toward their Indian neighbors. Compared with the British, the French were more restrained and civil because they needed Indian allies to counter the British numbers and they treated most natives with diplomatic respect, generous presents, and hospitality. French traders often learned Indian ways and languages and married native women who provided the kinship connections that facilitated alliance and commerce. By 1750 the Indians faced a greater threat of settler invasion and environmental transformation from the numerous and aggressive English than from the few and more generous French.
7. 19 - Crossings During the 1540s and again during the early 17th century, the Spanish explored the Alta California coast. In 1768 the Spanish revived their interest in Alta California in response to premature reports that the Russians and British were planning their own colonies there. They royal inspector general in New Spain, Jose de Galvez, ordered Captain Gaspar de Portola to find and occupy the best harbors on the Alta California coast. Lacking Hispanics to colonize California, Galvez meant to turn the native Indians into Hispanics by reeducating them in missions and he found the perfect leader in Fray JuniperoSerro. In the spring of 1769, Portola and Serra reached San Diego Bay with about 100 Hispanics, all of which were men, and founded the first mission and presidio. The few Spanish in Alta California were occupied with trying to control the large native population and although greatly outnumbered they possessed the intimidating monopoly of horses and guns along with formal command structures. By Serra’s death in August 1784, Alta California had 2 agricultural towns, 4 presidios, and 9 missions.
