Sample Historical Essay on Colonial Capitalism

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Capitalism was a global phenomenon from the outset, not only by way of trade but also by way of extraction of resources from the colonies that underpinned capital accumulation in the metropolis.

The development of capitalism in the middle-ages resulted in the saturation of domestic markets especially in Europe, thus necessitating the search for markets and cheap labour abroad, resulting in the pursuit and scramble for colonies and the division of the world among capitalist countries. 1

The pillage and exploitation of the Americas and the West Indies, and that of Africa by virtue of the slave trade, and, not least,the discovery by Europeans of the sea route to India and the Far East, led to a very rapid growth in world trade by the sixteenth century. It is important to recognise the global character of the colonial enterprise from the outset. The financing of Indo-European trade, for instance, with gold and silver and precious stones was made possible by colonial link of Europe namely the Iberian conquest and exploitation of Latin America that brought about a steady flow of precious metals into Europe. That pattern of exports to Europe of Indian manufactures against payment in precious metals was the reverse of the classical pattern of colonial trade that was to be brought into being not until the second half of the 19th century. 2

Before the turn of