London became a wealthy city and a center of world commerce during these years-a marked contrast to previous decades in which the city had been repeatedly ravaged by the plague and the nation had suffered from continual threats of civil war.
England's commercial success was due largely to the expansion of its colonial empire. Like the Spanish, French, and Dutch, the British commissioned and encouraged overseas claims to territory. The British claimed areas in North America, Africa, and the West Indies, and they began exporting goods gathered from overseas locations to European markets. For example, British merchants in the West Indies produced and refined sugar that was shipped to England and Europe to sell or trade for other commodities. In order to produce the sugar at little or no cost, the British exported slaves from Africa to work the fields. These slaves were primarily from Guinea, part of the West African territory claimed by England. The slave trade thus bolstered the British economy, becoming an industry in itself as traders not only supplied British plantation owners with slaves but also sold slaves to others throughout the Caribbean and the Americas.
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