The European countries founded colonies in the Americas because they could buy cheap resources from their colonies, the colonies would serve as captive markets, and they could collect taxes from the colonists. Colonies were only allowed to trade resources with their mother country and their mother country wanted to buy resources as cheaply as possible. This meant that the colonists had to sell resources to their mother country at low prices even if they could sell their resources for more elsewhere. After buying resources from their colonies, the mother country would make refined goods to sell back to their colonies at a high price with a large profit. The colony would have to buy the goods from their mother country because they could not buy from anyone else, thus creating captive markets. Lastly, the mother country could collect taxes from the colonists to make money because they did not have to provide anything to the colonists. For example, England taxed its colonies but it did not have to provide anything to them, such as representation in government.