David YanM. Jack CarterUniversity English IIApril 6, 2014Thomas Mun's Theory of Mercantilism and Its Effects on the American ColoniesUnmistakable tension fills the air of a small Boston townhouse on a warm summer evening. In all the town halls of the American colonies, there was strong discontent against the recently passed molasses law and all its substitutes, including the sugar and stamp laws. These laws, descendants of the mercantilist "Navigation Acts" passed by the British Parliament in the 1650s, were put in place to help Britain recover from the devastating losses of the Seven Years' War. These acts threatened to cripple the colonies' already weak economy and negatively affect the export capabilities of New England ports, since producers of molasses and rum would have to charge higher prices for products that already had low profit margin and strong competition. . Colonists, aware of this threat, banded together as the slogan “No Taxes Without Representation” resonated throughout the colonies. The Molasses, Sugar, and Stamp Acts, products of Thomas Mun's theory of mercantilism, acted as the final straw for the colonies, which would mark the beginning of the American Revolution . More importantly, these acts marked the beginning of the end of mercantilism, an economic mentality that dominated the economies of Europe's largest nations for two centuries. Britain's powerful mercantilist economic policy controlled every facet of British trade until it was finally abandoned when restrictive mercantilist trade laws led the leaders of the American colonies to declare the need for fair representation, followed by the events of the American Revolution which led to the demise of mercantilism. .The theory of mercantilism follows...... middle of article ......official trade relations between the American colonies and Spain's own colonies in Peru. France pursued a similar economic policy, as Marie-Jeanne Rossignol points out: “An edict published in August 1784, which aimed to open more commercial possibilities to Americans in the French Caribbean.” Thanks to this new decree, the French freed their West Indian ports from the simple role of supplying raw materials to the French mainland and let the colonies become an independent trading port. Even Britain joined in, as the consequences of the independence of the North American colonies also forced the British to rethink their exclusive monopoly on colonial politics. In the rest of Europe, similar decrees and trade relations were being opened. Soon after the American Revolution, European colonial mercantilism collapsed. Mercantilism has been shown to have its own