Western Europe and the Atlantic economy in the eighteenth century

Abstract

By 1700 all of the principal powers of western Europe Spain, Portugal, France, the Dutch Republic and England had some stake in other parts of the Atlantic basin: Portugal in Brazil; Spain in Florida, Mexico and Cuba; France in Quebec, Louisiana and the Caribbean; the United Provinces in St Martin, St Eustatius, Curacao and Surinam and the English on the mainland of north America and the Caribbean while the Portuguese, the French, the Danes, the Dutch, the Brandenburgers and the English had forts and settlements in west Africa and the Portuguese had a string of islands including Madeira, the Azores and the Canaries. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the Atlantic was criss-crossed by trade routes and capital and skills as well as commodities helped to link together the various areas washed by the Atlantic Ocean. By and large at the beginning of the eighteenth century the initiative and direction of the Atlantic economy came from Europe but in the course of that century, notably on the mainland of north America and in the Caribbean, communities were developing which became eager for economie and political independence of the European nations which had founded and fostered them. And in order to run their economie affairs better they also sought to establish separate patterns of trade and exploitation of resources. Yet the Atlantic economy was not a closed system. The countries of western Europe had relations with other parts of Europe, with other parts of Africa, with India and the Far East and her explorers brought the Antipodes and the Pacific islands within the ambit of European consciousness in this century.