Were English Attempts to Increase Imperial Control over the Colonies During the Seventeenth Century Successful in Making the Colonies Dependent on England Socially or Politically?

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Rather than bring the colonies into political ties with England, it just further enforced the colonists ideals for freedom.

A further step taken by England to ensure that the colonies were forced to rely on them was the deliberate keeping of specialized workers out of colonial hands. The government of England had a longstanding policy of promoting emigration to the colonies and believed that the growth in the colonies was the best method of growing wealth for England. They had envisioned laborers in the colonies returning raw materials back to England for skilled artisans to create goods, which greatly benefited the English economy. However, once skilled workers began emigrating to the colonies, the English government tried to put a stop to this in hopes that the colonies would remain dependent on England for the final step of creating goods. The efforts were in vain as even without official efforts to promote emigration, it steadily flowed anyway. All in all, the colonies found themselves with an abundance of skilled workers despite the efforts of England, marking another failure in the attempt of making the colonies dependent on their mother country.

The largest factor in the failure of England gaining a foothold in British North America was the fact that most colonists had come to sever ties with England to avoid persecution and obtain freedom. Colonists were willing to trade any benefits they received from England for their freedom and no amount of trade restrictions or England-imposed governmental structures would change that. Thus, most seventeenth-century efforts to shape Britain’s colonies into non autonomous rule with English overseers and pursue mercantilist economic aims were met with little success mostly because of varied forms of colonial rebellion and bypassing of English endeavours. The colonies found an alliance among themselves, not with England and found they did not need English interference in their economy and politics.

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