The Georgian Period in the British Empire is defined by the reign of the Hanoverian kings who were all called George. The Late Georgian Era spans from 1763, with the reign of George III, George IV and William IV until the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1837. The Georgian Era was a period of British expansion across the world. During this period, mercantilism dominated British and Western European economic policies. British imperial trade was governed by the Navigation Act of 1651, which restricted colonial trade for almost 200 years. But it was in 1763, with the end of the Seven Years' War, that the modern era of imperial colonialism truly began. Mercantilism sparked the creation and expansion of colonies and caused wars between many major European countries. Mercantilism is a system in which the mother country profited by prohibiting its colonies from trading with countries outside the mother country and its other colonies. Raw materials were worked domestically and finished products were sold in the mother country's colonies, surplus goods were exported to provide more gold for the mother country's economy. Britain employed mercantilism in what is called triangular trade. Ships from Liverpool carried textiles, rum and finished goods to Africa. Then, on the West African coast, these goods would be exchanged for men, women and children captured by slave traders or purchased from African chiefs, in exchange for finished goods. It often took a captain a long time to fill his ship. Slave traders often spent three to four months sailing along the coast, looking for the fittest and cheapest slaves. Africans often put up violent resistance to slave ships and their crews. These were attacks coming from the middle of paper from any other European country. The American colonies declared and achieved independence from the empire. Britain banned the slave trade, effectively ending the triangular trade. The doctrine of free trade eventually replaced mercantilism. The triangular trade accounted for more than 2 million slaves sold to plantations in the British West Indies and 500,000 slaves to North American plantations. It was a dark period in British and American history from which, many believe, the countries have still not fully recovered to this day. Slavery was the worst aspect of several forms of exploitation of colonies and settlers by the British Empire through its mercantilism and discriminatory taxation and regulation of its colonies, which ultimately was doomed to failure and to be replaced by a system that treated colonies and settlers with at least a little more fairness and equality.