Essay must be clearly struuctured with an introduction and a conclusion to finish it off.
1850 word essay
No plagiarism, no AI detection is a must !
In the early modern period, European powers competed to grab land in the Americas. In the
seventeenth century, the English established successful plantations in the West Indies and in
Virginia. Further north, puritans argued that they had found “empty” land to set up colonies where
previously landless English families could make a home for themselves. But the land was far from
empty. Using legal and violent means, colonists gradually dispossessed native people of their
ancestral land and transformed its ecology. Many came with a religious purpose and a conviction
that improving the land would make it theirs. Private property in land was a cornerstone of English
colonisation. With the possibility of pushing the frontier westward, labour was scarcer than land,
driving up wages. After the Independence, the Northern states industrialised under the protection
of tariffs. Dependent on slave labour, southern US states and Caribbean islands grew cash crops for
the British markets. As the soil depleted, they moved slaves to new locations. By the end of the
nineteenth century, the United States had become the largest economy in the world.
seventeenth century, the English established successful plantations in the West Indies and in
Virginia. Further north, puritans argued that they had found “empty” land to set up colonies where
previously landless English families could make a home for themselves. But the land was far from
empty. Using legal and violent means, colonists gradually dispossessed native people of their
ancestral land and transformed its ecology. Many came with a religious purpose and a conviction
that improving the land would make it theirs. Private property in land was a cornerstone of English
colonisation. With the possibility of pushing the frontier westward, labour was scarcer than land,
driving up wages. After the Independence, the Northern states industrialised under the protection
of tariffs. Dependent on slave labour, southern US states and Caribbean islands grew cash crops for
the British markets. As the soil depleted, they moved slaves to new locations. By the end of the
nineteenth century, the United States had become the largest economy in the world.
References:
MUST PICK 5 from the list below
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Greer, Allan. 2017. Property and Dispossession: Natives, Empires and Land in Early Modern North
America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - Kulikoff, Allan. 2000. From British Peasants to colonial American farmers. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press. Especially Chapter 2 (but see also Prologue, and Ch. 1, 3). -
Landes, David S. [1998] 2014. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and
Some So Poor. London: Abacus. In particular Chapter 19: Frontiers. - Locke, John. [1690] 1988. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Especially Second Treatise, Chapter V. -
Meiksins Wood, Ellen. 2002. The Origin of Capitalism. London: Version. Especially Chapter 7.
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Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Especially,
Chapter 6: Abolishing the land constraint. - Tully, James. 1993. An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Chapter 5: Rediscovering America. -
Weaver, John C. 2006. Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-1900.
Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. - Zahedieh, Nuala. 2014. Overseas trade and empire. In The Cambridge Economic History of Modern
Britain, New edition, edited by R. Floud, J. Humphries, and P. Johnson. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press: 392-420