One way land contributed to the sugar trade was that the Caribbean had perfect conditions for …show more content…
Mercantilism focuses on having more exports than imports. Britain used this strategy by having colonies that produced sugar and who gave the sugar only to Britain. Britain then exported the sugar to other countries, making Britain more money (saving money on importing sugar and making money exporting it). In document 12, Phillip Roden explains that, “Beginning about 1660, the Parliament in England passed a whole series of laws dealing with colonial shipping, trade, manufacturing and money”. The purpose of these laws was to force Britain’s colonies to give sugar to only Britain, making it so they would be the only people benefiting from the sugar trade. After Britain got the sugar, it traded goods to African kings in return for slaves, as seen in document 11. The slaves were sent to the Caribbean islands to cultivate sugar; the Caribbean colonies sent the sugar to Britain; Britain sold the sugar to other countries; and Britain then used the money to get more slaves. This process repeated, blossoming an endless cycle of wealth for Europeans, and proving that the foolproof strategy of Mercantilism was