Mercantilism: Shaping Nations

How Mercantilism Helped to Shape the American Nation In the Middle Ages, the definition of wealth was based on the amount of productive land. According to this definition, France was the wealthiest and therefore the most powerful of the European nations. During the sixteenth century the definition of wealth began to change. As the ability to conduct profitable foreign trade increased, so did the amount of cash. Thus, the new definition of wealth came to …

…increased trade, wrought many new things from the early 1400's to the late 1700's. Trade increased, an economic revolution took place, countries began to expand to new lands, and people began to call these new lands home. The thirteen original British colonies had started as individual, independent colonies who each worked for the economic good of Great Britain - but they ended up a unified nation, under God, with liberty, justice, and freedom for all.