As Europeans expanded their market reach into the colonial sphere, they devised a new economic policy to ensure the colonies’ profitability. The philosophy of mercantilism shaped European perceptions of wealth from the 1500s to the late 1700s. Mercantilism held that only a limited amount of wealth, as measured in gold and silver bullion, existed in the world. In order to gain power, nations had to amass wealth by mining these precious raw materials from their colonial possessions. Mercantilists did not believe in free trade, arguing instead that the nation should control trade to create wealth and to enhance state power. In this view, colonies existed to strengthen the colonizing nation.
Colonial mercantilism, a set of protectionist policies designed to benefit the colonizing nation, relied on several factors:
Colonies rich in raw materials
Cheap labor
Colonial loyalty to the home government
Control of the shipping trade
Under this system, the colonies sent their raw materials—harvested by enslaved people or native workers—to Europe. European industry then produced and sent finished materials—like textiles, tools, manufactured goods, and clothing—back to the colonies. Colonists were forbidden from trading with other countries.
Commodification quickly affected production in the New World. American silver, tobacco, and other items—which were used by native peoples for ritual purposes—became European commodities with monetary value. Before the arrival of the Spanish, for example, the Inca people of the Andes consumed chicha, a corn beer, for ritual purposes only. When the Spanish discovered chicha, they bought and traded for it, detracting from its spiritual significance for market gain. This process disrupted native economies and spurred early commercial capitalism.
Oil played a big part in the military and simply economic plans of each country. Japan entered through that specifically but also Japan for some time felt as though they were treated as a “little country” they wanted to be a world power so the best way to get to that is a booming economy and bolstered military. At that time the U.S. supplied Japan with a majority of it’s fuel. As did the U.S. to Germany but when the U.S. entered the war it was very much a moral cause but at the same time it was over resources. Germany, Japan, and the U.S. shortly before the war had a time of great economic gains.
I would go with answer choice A) Inti.
A military protective zone between the English colonies and the Spanish settlement in Florida.
