Navigation Acts, in English history,
a series of laws designed to restrict England’s carrying trade to English ships
, effective chiefly in the 17th and 18th centuries. … Various fish imports and exports were entirely reserved to English shipping, as was the English coastal trade.
- 1651 Navigation Act.
- 1660 Navigation Act.
- 1663 Navigation Act aka the Staple Act.
- The Navigation Acts of 1673 (aka the Plantation Duty Act), 1696 and 1773 (aka the Molasses Act) closed the loopholes of the previous Navigation Acts and increased taxes.
Navigation Act 1663. The Navigation Act 1663 (15 Cha. 2 c. 7), long-titled An Act for the Encouragement of Trade, also termed
the Encouragement of Trade Act 1663 or the Staple Act
, was passed on 27 July.
These laws were known as Navigation Acts. Their purpose was
to regulate the trade of the empire and to enable the mother country to derive a profit from the colonies which had been planted overseas
.
The Navigation Acts
declared what England and its colonies could import, or bring in to a place, and export, or send out to other places
. When England passed the Navigation Acts, more and more rules were added, which made it harder for the colonies to trade.
The Navigation Act of 1660 continued the policies set forth in the 1651 act and enumerated certain articles-
sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, and ginger
-that were to be shipped only to England or an English province.
Navigation Acts angered the colonists because
limited limited or controlled all trade with the colonies where Britain said it was the only country allowed to trade with the colonies
. The Navigation act were the laws which were meant to enrich the England by regulating the trade on its colonies.
Once under British control, regulations were imposed on the colonies that allowed the colony to produce only raw materials and to trade only with Britain. Many colonists resented the Navigation Acts
because they increased regulation and reduced their opportunities for profit, while England profited from colonial work
.
How did the Navigation Acts Affect the colonists?
it directed the flow of goods between England and the colonies
. It told colonial merchants that they could not use foreign ships to send their goods, even if it was less expensive.
The Navigation Acts benefited England in that
the colonies had to purchase imports only brought by English ships and could only sale their products to England
.
The navigation acts were
passed to restrict colonial trade and to stop the colonies from exporting goods to foreign markets
.
The Navigation Acts were efforts to put the theory of Mercantilism into actual practice. Beginning in 1650, Parliament acted to combat the threat of the rapidly growing Dutch carrying trade. Later laws were passed in 1651, 1660, 1662, 1663, 1670 and 1673.
The acts’ main provisions were as follows:
Imported goods from Asia and Africa had to arrive in England and her colonies in English ships
. Imported goods from non-English America had to arrive in England and her colonies in English ships. England’s American colonies could only export their goods in English ships.
The Acts
increased colonial revenue by taxing the goods going to and from British colonies
. The Navigation Acts (particularly their effect on trade in the colonies) were one of the direct economic causes of the American Revolution.
The worst provision of the Navigation acts is
legislation, trade
, with the colonies was to be managed only in English or colonial ships. Itemize products such as sugar, tobacco, and indigo were to be shipped only within the empire.
Enumeration was abandoned in 1822, and the navigation laws were finally repealed in
1849 and 1854
.
