Why Did England Colonize North America?

During the 1560s, Sir Humphrey Gilbert made the "first positive effort" to colonise North America. Although he lacked the finance to explore the New World, he continued his efforts in hopes to find riches in the new land that would help solve the crises that England was facing. It is evident that the English had many reasons that motivated them to colonise North America. One of these factors was the domestic problems that they were facing during the late 16th and early 17th century. England was facing crucial problems to which colonisation seem to be the answer: mass overpopulation was putting a huge strain on English resources, such as housing and jobs, which created further problems of unemployment and a decline in the economy. By colonising

This influenced colonisation of North America due to the fact that population growth threatened to undermine the existing social order as the government did not know how to cope with the growing number of people and they struggled to find places for people to work without causing social disorder. It was important at this time for countries to mobilise economic resources so that all resources could be narrowly focused on a common goal, such as industrial or commercial expansion. That strength of the western European states which could be mobilised lay in conditions that permitted the growth, on the foundation of initially landlord and peasant economies, of industries, trading activities and services whose productivity was relatively high and which in favourable circumstances could originate innovations in technique or organisation or effect regular capital accumulation. The western European countries all experienced rapid population growth until the end of the 16th century. The growth of population, supported by more abundant money supply, was at the base of an economic expansion that was general during the 16th century. The spreading effects of population growth in a society that made increasing use of the market depended on an adequate supply of money as a means of exchange. From a little after 1550 until towards 1620, there was enough supply of precious metals in

Early plans for colonising North America also emerged in England in the 1570s in response to a growing interest in long-distance trade. Hakluyt, a writer in the late 16th century who promoted colonisation of North America, believed that once the poor had been moved over to North America, they could make commodities for the English market, and other products for shipping trade, which would make the poor no longer idle as they were working. In England the unprofitability of cultivation in conditions of low demand and labour shortage during the 15th century had caused lords to abandon farming and grant out much of their lands to tenants, which caused mass unemployment. Population had grown at a spectacular pace - it increased, from roughly 50,000 in 1500, to 300,000 in 1700 ; prices had risen to unprecedented levels; grains, for example, increased by as much as 500 percent during the century and raw wool commanded high prices from Flemish weavers which, for the poor, led to seasonal or year long terms of unemployment. Those who had land and wealth, which included owners and long-leased tenants, found it in their interest to expand which impacted unrestrained