Expansion Of Trade And Markets During The Nineteenth And Eighteenth Century

With the “discovery” of the Americas or the “New World” economic development and expansion followed. With the prospect of new imports European countries quickly colonized areas with resources without regard to the impact on the indigenous populations. This expansion of trade and markets after the “discovery” of the “New World” completely changed and shaped Europe. The expansion of trade and markets in the Atlantic world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries shaped European culture and politics through the rise of consumer culture and cultural exchange, the beginning of globalization, and the development of the slave trade and colonialism. The expansion of trade in the Atlantic world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

The discovery of new imports such as coffee, sugar, chocolate, and tea, all considered “drug foods”, caused Europeans to become greatly dependent on imports. This dependency on consumerism can be seen in many texts of the time including when Lestrange says, “but of the other,...we do take so much, viz., of their Wines, their Linnens and their Silken Stuffs, that the excess of these Commodities imported unto us” (Lestrange 3). This shows how quickly Europeans became dependent on non-necessary items imported from other areas. This dependency became a part of European consumer culture and even today you can see this; when you think of London, you think of tea, but tea was an imported good that Europeans became dependent on. Another example of “drug foods” becoming prominent in European culture can be seen as “our English Gentry do so much delight in the drinking thereof, that they do still make their way with us notwithstanding their dearness,

While slavery was a prominent feature of social and political debates before the expansion of these markets, the expansion of trade created a global slave trade and market. This market was immoral and the subject of many political disputes. One political writer during the time, Pomponne, states the hypocrisy of the many Christians who supported this slave trade saying, “As to your second query, if enslaving our fellow creatures be a practice agreeable to Christianity, it is answered in a great measure in many treatises at home” (Pomponne 85). The political debates that ensued after the development of the global slave trade during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries eventually led to the abolishment of slavery in many European countries in the early nineteenth century. Along with the development of the slave trade, colonization grew exponentially with the expansion of trade and markets in the Atlantic as countries realized they could exploit their colonies for resources and goods. Adam Smith, the forefather of capitalism, explains the impacts of colonization by saying, “The unjust oppression of the industry of other countries falls back, if I may say so, upon the heads of the oppressors, and crushes their industry more than it does that of those other countries” (Smith 109). Smith