What is mercantilism and how it contribute to the development of colonies

England is small and contains relatively few natural resources. During Great Britain's mercantilism period, the prevailing economic wisdom suggested that the empire's many colonies could supply raw materials and resources to the mother country and subsequently be used as export markets for the finished products. The resulting favorable balance of trade was thought to increase national wealth. Great Britain was not alone in this line of thinking. The French, Spanish and Portuguese competed with the British for colonies; it was thought, no great nation could exist and be self-sufficient without colonial resources.   During this time, there were many clear aggression and human rights violations that were committed by imperial European empires on their colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, though not all of these were directly rationalized by mercantilism. Mercantilism did, however, lead to the adoption of enormous trade restrictions, which stunted the growth and freedom of colonial business.  In the 1660s, for example, England passed the Navigation Acts, a series of laws designed to make American colonies more dependent on manufactured products from Great Britain. British authorities further enumerated a set of protected goods that could only be sold to British merchants, including sugar, tobacco, cotton, indigo, furs, and iron.