Restoration England - Land

Question 1

why did Britain want an empire?

Answer 1

• Britain wanted an empire for many reasons. For example, in Africa, Britain wanted to use the Suez Canal from Egypt and Gold from Ghana
• They also wanted oil from Nigeria
• Britain used Australia as a penal colony as prisons in Britain were overcrowded

Question 2

what is a dowry?

Answer 2

a gift given by the brides family to the intended husband

Question 3

what is a monopoly?

Answer 3

exclusive trading rights

Question 4

how did Charles II acquire Bombay?

Answer 4

• the dowry Catherine of Braganza’s family gave Charles was a growing port in India owned since 1534 -> Bombay

Question 5

what did Charles do with Bombay? Why?

Answer 5

• Charles was not particularly interested in the land and agreed to rent it to a private company for 10 pounds of gold a year

Question 6

what did the East India Company do in Bombay?

Answer 6

• Bombay was built as a port city to make money for the East India Company
• trading in goods like silk and spices, the company was allowed to trade not just with Britain and British colonies but also with its Portuguese neighbours and with China

Question 7

what other ports did the company set up and how was this beneficial to England?

Answer 7

• they had ports in Surat, Calcutta and Madras and they were increasingly able to dominate trade in the area

Question 8

what happened in Morocco?

Answer 8

• Queen Catherine’s dowry also included the port of Tangier, in Morocco
• the Portuguese had spent years trying to maintain order with constant rebellions and attacks from the Moroccans who wanted the city back
• the English faced the same problems, and, with growing concern about the cost of the colony, Charles ordered it to be abandoned in 1683

Question 9

how did the British colonise the Caribbean?

Answer 9

• most of the Caribbean had been captured by the Spanish in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
• yet England did control some islands there, most significantly Barbados
• Competition between the three European powers (England, France and Spain) over the Caribbean did not involve full-scale battles
• instead, they raided each other’s ports, stealing what they could and then causing as much damage as possible to their rival ships
• by the time Charles II was crowned, the Spanish had begun to lose interest in the Caribbean, deciding to focus more on South America and the money that could be made there
• In 1655, the British captured the island of Jamaica

Question 10

how did the Caribbean benefit Britain?

Answer 10

• in the seventeenth century the amount of sugar consumed in Britain increased greatly and the Caribbean provided the perfect conditions to grow it
• sugarcane was grown on huge plantations and shipped to England where it was refined for sale
• Bristol in particular processed large amounts of sugar in the 1600s and a number of men became very wealthy as they acquired the land cheaply and sold the produce for immense profit
• the income from a 200-acre cane plantation in Barbados was enough to support the lifestyle of a duke in England