colonial economy
Exploitative resource system
A colonial economy is an economic system organized to benefit a colonizing power rather than the colonized territory.
Resources flow outward—raw materials extracted, cash crops cultivated—while the colony imports finished goods from the metropole.
The arrangement typically discourages local manufacturing and keeps the colony dependent: The colonial economy left the country with infrastructure built only to move exports to ports.
- mercantilismTrade policy favoring exports
- plantationLarge-scale farming operation
- sugar plantationsFarms growing sweetener crops
- forced laborCompelled toil, no consent
- cash cropsPlants grown for profit
monoculture · trade routes · imperialism · colonial masters · encomienda · cotton production · resistance movements · triangular trade · slavery · taxation systems · peonage · debt bondage · indentured servitude · tariffs · trade monopolies · colonial ports · mining · cotton
- Colonial AmericaGeorge Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, Declaration of Independence
- colonialismcolonial rule, colonial powers, colonizer, colonies, colonial empires
- economic historystock market crash, Industrial Revolution, trade routes, Great Depression, gold standard
- Philippine historypresidents, Spanish rule, vice president, revolutionaries, Imelda
- trade historycommerce, merchant, trade routes, traders, trader
- Colonial KoreaJapanese occupation, Japanese rule, colonial rule, occupation period, independence movement