The Importance Of Mercantilism

First, mercantilism and distribution of resources. As Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2001) say, the main objective of the Spanish and Portuguese colonialists in the 19th century was to obtain gold and silver from America. As a matter of fact, Spanish conquest of American land was directed at first at the Aztec and Inca empire, which, beyond of having large supplies of food and climatic diversity, also possessed enormous amounts of gold and silver (Bakewell 2004, Mann 2005) and had already good economical organisation. Another example was Mexico, which had the largest deposits of silver in the world, and which therefore became one of the key points in the Spanish empire (Hamnett 1999). Nevertheless, Acemoglu (2001) states that for instance the Spanish empire granted rights of exploitation for lands, gold and silver mines, as well as labour, to a few powerful individuals, encomiendadores. Both Portuguese and Spanish empires set up a highly developed system of monopolies and trade regulations to extract resources from colonies, which emphasized greatly the inequalities between those who were granted the monopolies and extraction rights, and those who were not. As a matter of fact, only a few chosen ports could export goods with vessels, and those vessels were the possession of a handful of Spanish merchants. Furthermore, local manufacturing industries were mainly prohibited because competing with goods imported from Spain, which strengthened internal inequalities.
Second,