How did mercantilism affect the colonial economy?

Mercantilism, in which the colonial governments pushed to maximize the exports of the colonies, certainly had a large effect on the manner in which the colonies operated. The colonies, such as the English colonies in North America, stole and enslaved African people in order to maximize their export economy. For instance, the colony used brutal plantation slave labor to produce tobacco that was exported to European markets. The colonial governments sought to maximize their profits of exporting tobacco through using slave labor in which they (of course) did not pay any wages to the enslaved African people who were forced to toil in the tobacco fields for the mercantile economy. The colonies experienced an economic boom from tobacco sales on the European markets, and as such, further expanded the slave trade as well as further expanded their colonizing of indigenous people and land as they stole more land for tobacco production.