merchant

(noun)

A person who traffics in commodities for profit.

Related Terms

Examples of merchant in the following topics:

  • The Colonial Elite

    • Other New England merchants took advantage of the rich fishing areas along the Atlantic Coast.
    • Some merchants exploited the vast amounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England.
    • Hundreds of New England shipwrights built oceangoing ships, which they sold to British and American merchants.
    • As in New England, the majority of the elite in the middle colonies were merchants.
    • Merchants dominated urban society; about 40 merchants controlled half of Philadelphia's trade.

  • Trade and Economy

    • Mercantilism meant that the government and merchants based in England became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires and even merchants based in its own colonies.
    • The government protected its London-based merchants—and kept others out—by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm.
    • The government had to fight smuggling, especially by American merchants, some of whose activities (which included direct trade with the French, Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese) were classified as such by the Navigation Acts.
    • The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain.

  • The Battle of the Atlantic

    • Allied merchant shipping, or convoys.
    • Merchant ship losses dropped by over two-thirds in July 1941, and the losses remained low until November.
    • Further air cover was provided by the introduction of merchant aircraft carriers (MAC ships), and later the growing numbers of American-built escort carriers.
    • Over 36,000 Allied sailors, airmen and servicemen and and a similar number of merchant seamen lost their lives.
    • Discuss the tonnage war in the Atlantic between Allied merchant ships and the German Navy and Airforce.

  • New England Society

    • Early New England Puritan society was characterized by yeoman farming communities and a growing merchant class.
    • Some merchants exploited the vast amounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England.
    • Hundreds of New England shipwrights built oceangoing ships, which they sold to British and American merchants.
    • A growing class of artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants provided services to the growing farming population.
    • Many merchants became very wealthy and came to dominate the society of seaport cities.

  • Enforcing the Navigation Acts

    • Within a few years, Dutch and Spanish merchants overwhelmed English merchants in commerce on the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and the Levant.
    • In some instances, British colonists and foreign merchants subverted the Act; for example in the West Indies, the Dutch kept up a flourishing "smuggling" trade due to the preference of English planters for Dutch goods and the better deal the Dutch offered in the sugar trade.
    • The Acts required all of a colony's imports to be either bought from England or resold by English merchants in England, regardless of what price could be obtained elsewhere.
    • Others argue that the political friction caused by the Acts was more serious than the negative economic impact, because the merchants most affected were the most active politically.
    • Irritation with stricter enforcement under the Sugar Act of 1764 became a greater source of resentment by merchants in the American colonies against Great Britain, contributing to the American Revolution.

  • Social Classes in the Colonies

    • Unlike Europe, where aristocratic families and the established church were in control, the American political culture was open to economic, social, religious, ethnic, and geographical interests, with merchants, landlords, petty farmers, artisans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Germans, Scotch Irish, Yankees, Yorkers, and many other identifiable groups taking part.
    • The southern region had very few urban places apart from Charleston, where a merchant elite maintained close connections with nearby plantation society.
    • Merchants, lawyers, and doctors in Charleston often desired to buy lands and retire as country gentlemen.

  • The Mercantalist System

    • The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain.
    • Under British mercantilism, the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires.
    • The government protected its merchants—and kept others out—through trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports into the realm.
    • The Navigation Acts expelled foreign merchants from England's domestic trade.

  • Colonial Cities

    • Merchants dominated seaport society and about 40 merchants controlled half of Philadelphia's trade.
    • Wealthy merchants in Philadelphia and New York, like their counterparts in New England, built elegant Georgian-style mansions.
    • Hundreds of seamen, some who were African American, worked as sailors on merchant ships.

  • Equality and its Limits

    • In terms of class, Loyalists tended to have longstanding social and economic connections to British merchants and government.
    • For instance, prominent merchants in major port cities such as New York, Boston and Charleston tended to be Loyalists, as did men involved with the fur trade along the northern frontier.
    • Many Loyalists, especially merchants in the port cities, had maintained strong and long-standing relations with Britain (often with business and family links to other parts of the British Empire).
    • They were craftsmen and small merchants.
    • Most yeomen farmers, craftsmen, and small merchants joined the Patriot cause to demand more political equality.

  • Commerce in the New England Colonies

    • Some merchants exploited the vast amounts of timber along the coasts and rivers of northern New England.
    • Hundreds of New England shipwrights built oceangoing ships, which they sold to British and American merchants.
    • At the same time, a variety of artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants provided services to the growing farming population.
    • After these products had been delivered to port towns such as Boston and Salem in Massachusetts, New Haven in Connecticut, and Newport and Providence in Rhode Island, merchants then exported them to the West Indies, where they were traded for molasses, sugar, gold coins, and bills of exchange (credit slips).
    • Other New England merchants took advantage of the rich fishing areas along the Atlantic Coast and financed a large fishing fleet, transporting its catch of mackerel and cod to the West Indies and Europe.