Chapter 17 Flashcards
enclosure
the movement to fence in fields in order to farm more efficiently, at the expense of poor peasants who relied on common fields for farming and pasture
proletarianization
the transformation of large numbers of small peasant farmers into landless rural wage earners
cottage industry
a stage of industrial development in which rural workers used hand tools in their homes to manufacture goods on a large scale for sale in a market
putting-out system
the eighteenth-century system of rural industry in which merchant loaned raw materials to cottage workers, who processed them and returned the finished products to the merchant
industrious revolution
the shift that occurred as families in northwestern Europe focused on earning wages instead of producing goods for household consumption; this reduced their economic self-sufficiency but increased their ability to purchase consumer goods
guild system
the organization of artisanal production into trade-based associations, or guilds, each of which received a monopoly over its trade and the right to train apprentices and hire workers
economic liberalism
a belief in free trade and competition based on Adam Smith’s argument that the invisible hand of free competition would benefit all individuals, rich and poor
Navigation Acts
a series of English laws that controlled the import of goods to Britain and British colonies
Treaty of Paris
the treaty that ended the Seven Years War in Europe and the colonies in 1763, and ratified British victory on all colonial fronts
debt peonage
a form of serfdom that allowed a planter or rancher to jeep his workers or slaves in perpetual debt bondage by periodically advancing food, shelter, and a little money
Atlantic slave trade
the forced migration of Africans across the Atlantic for slave labor on plantations and in other industries; the trade reached its peak in the eighteenth century and ultimately involved more than 12 million Africans
