France’s exclusif monopoly chained colony trade to the metropole

Evidence

In the late seventeenth century, under the leadership of the administrator Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the exclusif, or monopoly, was put into place. The monopoly meant that only ships from French ports could trade with the colonies. From the perspective of the royal government, the colonies existed to contribute to the economy of the metropole, and it was therefore perfectly logical that the planters should be constrained in this way. France, after all, protected the colonies with its navy, supported their growth with its slave and merchant ships, and supplied settlers and government. It was to be a monogamous relationship of control and support in which colony and mother country would expand in power and wealth together. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 120

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the exclusif monopoly system as the cornerstone of French colonial economy.
• XREF: connects to: An overvalued CFA franc was engineered to reorient colonial trade toward France; A strong CFA franc forced colonial trade to flow through metropole markets. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 77; Currency arrangements can transfer wealth from colonies to metropolis — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 20 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: An overvalued CFA franc was engineered to reorient colonial trade toward France; A strong CFA franc forced colonial trade to flow through metropole markets. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 77; Currency arrangements can transfer wealth from colonies to metropolis — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 20 (+1 more)