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In this period sailors from European nations explored and started to colonise the wider world. Spanish forces invaded and colonised parts of Central and South America. The Portuguese enslaved Africans and transported them to their colonies in Brazil. Dutch merchants dominated trade with Asia. English and French colonists in North America and the West Indies set up plantations using enslaved labour transported from West Africa.

The Royal African Company

Financed by the banks and insurance companies, businesses shipped goods such as weapons, pots and some textiles to West Africa. These were exchanged for enslaved people who were then transported to the Americas to be sold and work on plantations. As ‘chattels’, they and their descendants became the ‘property’ of their owners. The commodities they produced - sugar and tobacco above all - were shipped to Britain and sold to generate great profits for the trading companies.

English and Spanish colonists had a devastating effect on the indigenous people of America and the Caribbean, most of whom suffered death in war or from disease. The plantation system and the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans also devastated West Africa. Meanwhile great wealth came to Britain, especially port cities such as London, Bristol and Liverpool.

The East India Company

The East India Company was set up by a group of English merchants who began trading in Asia after 1600, with the support of the English Crown. They set up trading posts called ‘factories’ on the coast of India which grew to become armed settlements. These settlements needed administrators and officers, so many English men (known as ‘nabobs’) travelled out to work on these settlements. By the mid-18th century Britain dominated trade in Asia, bringing cotton, spices and other goods, and after 1757 the East India Company took control of India.