The colonies helped make England wealthy for multiple reasons.
1) Resources. Minerals such as gold and silver in the Americas were shipped back to England and used to increase the country's wealth.
2) Marketplace. The colonists in the Americas served as both producers and consumers of goods. Raw materials were sent from England to the Americas, where colonists would turn those raw materials into finished products and send them back to England to be sold. Also, finished products from England could be sent to the colonies as a new place for more people to buy them.
