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Why Did Britain Begin Its Expansion Later Than Other European Powers?
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British Empire – The Early British Empire
In this course, we explore the history and evolution of the British Empire from its founding to the late eighteenth century, focusing on: (i) Britain’s late entry into overseas expansion compared to other European powers and its eventual rise to dominance; (ii) the evolution of the English state during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including the Navigation Acts and the Act of Union; (iii) the impact of mercantilism on state power and overseas conflicts, particularly the strain of continuous warfare with European rivals; (iv) the structure of the British Empire post-Seven Years War, highlighting plantation, settler, and administrative colonies; and (v) the empire’s late eighteenth-century crisis, addressing issues such as taxation, colonial resentment, and the ideological implications of the American Revolution, culminating in significant reforms, including the abolition of the slave trade.
Why Did Britain Begin Its Expansion Later Than Other European Powers?
This lecture examines the history of the British Empire from its founding to the end of the eighteenth century. It discusses: (i) Britain’s late entry into overseas expansion compared to other European powers; (ii) how Britain overcame this late start to become a dominant imperial force; (iii) the crisis the empire faced in the late eighteenth century; (iv) the context of European exploration initiated by Columbus and da Gama; (v) the distinct political identities of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; and (vi) the public-private partnerships that facilitated imperial expansion, including the role of privateers and joint stock companies like the East India Company.
Hello.
00:00:06Nice to, be speaking to you.
00:00:07My name is Dane Kennedy.
00:00:10I'm an Emeritus Professor of History
00:00:12at George Washington University in Washington, DC,
00:00:14where I taught British and British Imperial history for several decades.
00:00:19And, I'm speaking to you today about the history of the
00:00:26British Empire from its founding
00:00:30to, the end of the eighteenth century.
00:00:33There are two, actually three
00:00:37key questions
00:00:41I think that surround study of this history of what
00:00:43is often called the first British empire,
00:00:48which runs from roughly the the sixteenth century to the end
00:00:51of the eighteenth century.
00:00:55And the first question is,
00:00:57is why Britain is such a latecomer
00:00:59to European expansion overseas?
00:01:02The second question is why Britain
00:01:06or how Britain actually overcomes
00:01:11its late start and manages by the late eighteenth century to
00:01:13become, the dominant imperial force,
00:01:18among European powers around the world.
00:01:23And the third question is,
00:01:27how does that empire reach a crisis point in the late
00:01:30eighteenth century?
00:01:35So what I'll do today is speak in effect about
00:01:37each of these issues in turn and give us a sense of how
00:01:42that empire rises and comes to crisis.
00:01:47Now we start really, at the end of the
00:01:51fifteenth century,
00:01:56with the voyages of Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic to
00:01:58the new world, which opens up that
00:02:03part of the world to European adventurers, explorers,
00:02:06and conquistadors.
00:02:10And the voyage not long after,
00:02:13by Vasco da Dama,
00:02:17around Africa to the Indian Ocean and to,
00:02:19India itself, which opens up the Asian sphere to
00:02:24European explorers, adventurers and imperialists as well.
00:02:29Now,
00:02:35by the time the British become actively
00:02:37involved in imperial expansion, the Spanish have already
00:02:40taken control over essentially all of South
00:02:47America, Central America,
00:02:51and significant parts of North America.
00:02:53The Portuguese have established trading bases,
00:02:55throughout,
00:03:01the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
00:03:02The Dutch have supplanted the Portuguese to some degree in
00:03:06the Asian sphere as well,
00:03:10establishing colonial
00:03:12centers, especially in what is now Indonesia.
00:03:15Other European powers powers have become actively involved as well.
00:03:19The French, the Danes, the Dutch,
00:03:23as I've said, the the, the Swedes.
00:03:27So the British face a lot of competition.
00:03:32Moreover,
00:03:39the it would it's a misnomer in effect to talk about a British
00:03:41empire at this time because at the point in which
00:03:45there is some kind of active involvement
00:03:49by people of the British Isles, around the globe,
00:03:53there is no such thing as a modern
00:03:57Britain.
00:04:00There are four, what we could call kingdoms,
00:04:01England, Scotland, Wales,
00:04:05Ireland, each of which
00:04:08are somewhat autonomous,
00:04:11although England has effectively politically
00:04:13incorporated what Wales by the early fifteen hundreds.
00:04:16Scotland is a separate political entity even though
00:04:21after sixteen o three, it shares a king with England.
00:04:24Ireland has certainly been, subject to invasions and
00:04:29conquest by English and Scottish
00:04:35forces.
00:04:39But it retains a degree of autonomy and, in fact,
00:04:40in the eighteenth century has its its own parliament.
00:04:44So
00:04:48we need to appreciate the degree to which it's
00:04:50a mistake to talk about a British Empire at this point.
00:04:54Now of the so called four kingdoms, the most
00:04:58powerful,
00:05:03the wealthiest, the one with the largest population is clearly England.
00:05:04And the greatest degree
00:05:10of involvement overseas,
00:05:13from the British Isles is is being driven by forces
00:05:16in England itself.
00:05:21What happens here is a kind of peculiar
00:05:25public private partnership between,
00:05:29English merchants, traders,
00:05:33adventurers, pirates, and the like,
00:05:36and the English state.
00:05:39So we have any number of English pirates
00:05:41who are roaming the seas, poaching on Spanish galleons,
00:05:45trying to capture their their cargoes of of gold and silver.
00:05:50Some of these pirates are given sanction by the English
00:05:55government, and they come to be known as privateers,
00:05:58and part of their profits then goes to the English state.
00:06:01Groups of English merchants,
00:06:05join together in joint stock companies and often,
00:06:09acquire royal charters from the king,
00:06:14which grants them the exclusive right to trade in particular
00:06:19parts of the world.
00:06:23Now again,
00:06:26the involvement of the state here is mainly to offer the
00:06:28sanction and to get some kind of revenue as a result
00:06:32of that enterprise.
00:06:36It's the private companies that are actually
00:06:39actively involved in taking the risk in developing
00:06:43these, overseas possessions.
00:06:47Perhaps the most famous, founded in sixteen hundred,
00:06:48is the East India Company.
00:06:52But later on, you have, for example,
00:06:54the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada.
00:06:56You have the Royal Africa Company in West Africa,
00:06:58and the like.
00:07:02In addition, you have groups of entrepreneurs
00:07:04who are establishing
00:07:10colonial outposts
00:07:13along the Eastern seaboard of the United States and in the
00:07:15Caribbean.
00:07:19And they too are given charters by,
00:07:20the monarchy,
00:07:24to sanction those enterprises.
00:07:26In the fifteen, sixteen hundreds,
00:07:30these efforts are still fairly limited, but,
00:07:33they will obviously grow and lead to much more
00:07:37significant enterprises.
00:07:41The significance, I think,
00:07:47of all of this and the most telling feature of this
00:07:49public private
00:07:54engagement is that it speaks to
00:07:56the weaknesses of the English state in this
00:08:00early period for the first century, century,
00:08:05a half of British overseas involvement.
00:08:07
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Kennedy , D. (2024, October 15). British Empire – The Early British Empire - Why Did Britain Begin Its Expansion Later Than Other European Powers? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/british-empire-the-early-british-empire/how-did-british-territorial-expansion-take-place-in-the-18th-century
MLA style
Kennedy , D. "British Empire – The Early British Empire – Why Did Britain Begin Its Expansion Later Than Other European Powers?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 15 Oct 2024, https://massolit.io/courses/british-empire-the-early-british-empire/how-did-british-territorial-expansion-take-place-in-the-18th-century