2. Policies of Mercantilism
These Policies took many forms:
• Domestically, governments would provide capital to new industries.
• Exempt new industries from guild rules and taxes.
• Establish monopolies over local and colonial markets.
• Grant titles and pensions to successful producers.
• The government assisted local industry by imposing tariffs, quotas, and
prohibitions on imports of goods that competed with local manufacturers.
• Governments also prohibited the export of tools and capital equipment and
the emigration of skilled labor that would allow foreign countries.
• Governments also prohibited the export of tools and capital equipment and
the emigration of skilled labor that would allow foreign countries
3. Salutary Neglect
• Salutary neglect is an American history term that refers to an
unofficial and long-term 17th- & 18th-century British policy of
avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, meant to
keep not American colonies obedient to England.
• Salutary neglect was a large contributing factor that led to the
American Revolutionary War.
• To what extent "salutary neglect" constituted an actual neglect
of colonial affairs, as the name suggests, versus a conscious
policy of the British government, is controversial among
historians, and also varies with national perspective.
4. Colonial reaction to Governor Andros
• Andros’s overbearing methods led colonists
to despise him deeply.
• Andros's governance was certainly an
imposition on the autonomy colonists once
enjoyed.
• The governor tried to force Episcopalian
worship on the Old South Meetinghouse in
Boston, thus infuriating prominent Puritan
ministers like Increase Mather and his son,
Cotton Mather.
• Andros also vigorously enforced the
Navigation Acts, creating many enemies in
port towns like Boston.
• He further exacerbated his reputation by
suppressing charters, town meetings, and
colonial assemblies.
5. Dominion Over New England
• Administrative Union of English Colonies.
• The political structure represented centralized
control more akin to the model used by the Spanish
monarchy.
• It was unacceptable to most colonists, they resented
being stripped of their traditional rights.
• the Dominion tried to make legal and structural
changes, but most of these were undone, and the
Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was
received that King James had left the throne in
England.
• One notable success was the introduction of the
Church of England into Massachusetts, whose
Puritan leaders had previously refused to allow it any
sort of foothold.
6. long-term influences of these policies on
the American colonists.
• The colonists vehemently protested against the new measures
resulting from the reversal of Salutary Neglect and the Sons of Liberty
was formed.
• The Boston Tea Party affair followed which was as a result and in
opposition to the Tea Act.
• The American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence was
the inevitable conclusion to the laws and taxes imposed by the British
on the American colonies - which had been fuelled by their attempt to
end their policy of Salutary Neglect.
• All of these are the long term effects of the reverse of Salutary Neglect,
and has shaped America today.
• For the strict policies of mercantilism, the coloniasts decided to revolt
against the British Crown, one of the reasons that led to the
revolution.
