Key Terms You Must Know

📖 Key Terms You Must Know

Navigation Acts

Laws (1651, reinforced 1660) that required all goods imported to England or its colonies to be carried on English ships crewed mainly by English sailors. Their purpose was to exclude Dutch shippers from England's colonial trade and build up English merchant and naval power. They worked — English shipping tonnage grew dramatically after 1660, and they were a direct cause of the three Anglo-Dutch Wars.

Triangular trade

The three-legged trade route that defined Atlantic commerce in the Restoration period. English manufactured goods (cloth, metal tools, weapons) were shipped to West Africa; enslaved Africans were transported to the Caribbean and American colonies (the "Middle Passage"); sugar, tobacco, cotton, and rum were shipped back to England. Each leg was profitable. The whole system depended on the enslavement of millions of Africans.

Joint-stock company

A business organisation where many investors each buy a "share" of the company, pooling their capital and sharing both the profits and the losses. This was the critical innovation that made long-distance trade viable — no single merchant could fund a voyage to India, but hundreds of shareholders could. The East India Company (1600), Royal African Company (1660), and Hudson's Bay Company (1670) were all joint-stock companies.

Monopoly

The exclusive right to trade in a particular commodity or region, granted by royal charter. The Royal African Company held the monopoly on English slave trading from 1660. This meant no independent English merchant could legally trade enslaved Africans without the Company's licence. The monopoly was ended in 1698, allowing independent traders in, which expanded the slave trade enormously.

Enclosure

The process by which landowners consolidated open common fields and village commons into private, fenced fields. Enclosure continued throughout the 17th century, forcing many peasant farmers off common land and into wage labour. It increased agricultural productivity (larger fields, more efficient farming) but created rural poverty and drove migration to towns.

Mercantilism

The economic theory dominant in 17th-century England, holding that a nation's wealth depends on accumulating gold and silver and achieving a favourable trade balance (exporting more than you import). The Navigation Acts were mercantilist policy in action — the government used laws to direct trade in England's favour. Mercantilism justified both colonial exploitation and trade wars against the Dutch.

Coffee house

Commercial establishments serving coffee (introduced to England c.1650) where men paid a penny admission and could read newspapers, discuss business and politics, and make commercial deals. By the 1660s there were hundreds in London. Lloyd's Coffee House became Lloyd's of London (insurance). Jonathan's Coffee House became the London Stock Exchange. They were the information networks of early capitalism.

Royal African Company

The English joint-stock company founded in 1660 with the Duke of York (later James II) as its patron, holding the royal monopoly on English slave trading. Between 1660 and 1698 it transported over 100,000 enslaved Africans to the Americas — one of the largest slave-trading operations in history. The Company branded enslaved people with the initials "DY" (Duke of York). Its profits helped fund English commercial expansion and the Crown itself.