The Navigation Acts were
hard to enforce
. The American coast was full of out‐of‐the‐way harbors where ships could be unloaded. Smuggling was common in the colonies and in England . As a result, the Navigation Acts did not successfully control the colonial trade.
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.
The Navigation Acts were laws that were
meant to enrich England by regulating the trade of its colonies
. The English government did not want the colonies to trade directly with other countries because that would only help the colonies. … They felt the English government was unfairly using them to enrich itself.
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.
The most significant result of the Navigation Acts upon American history was
the stifling of colonial manufacturing and increased resentment against the mother country
.
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 rise of the Dutch carrying trade, which threatened to drive English shipping from the seas
, was the immediate cause for the Navigation Act of 1651, and it in turn was a major cause of the First Dutch War. …
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 Navigation Acts (1651, 1660) were acts of Parliament
intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods
. … under pain of forfeiture of ships and goods.”
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.
How did the colonists respond to the law?
American colonists responded to
Parliament’s acts with organized protest
. Throughout the colonies, a network of secret organizations known as the Sons of Liberty was created, aimed at intimidating the stamp agents who collected Parliament’s taxes.
The main colonial response to the Navigation Acts was
smuggling
. They did not believe that the acts were just and so they felt justified in breaking them. They believed that smuggling was not really a crime because the laws were unjust.
What did the colonists do about the trade laws?
The colonists never really accepted the trade laws that Great Britain established. Going back to the beginning of the colonies when the British passed the Navigation Acts, the colonists found ways to ignore these laws. The trade laws
were designed to benefit Great Britain
, not the colonies.
Overall, the Acts formed the basis for English (and later) British overseas trade for nearly 200 years, but with the development and gradual acceptance of free trade, the Acts were
eventually repealed in 1849
.
Thus the Navigation Acts presented both benefits and burdens to the American colonies. New England benefited from
the monopoly in the shipbuilding and shipping industries
. … Once built and on the water, the colonial ships fared well in the imperial trade, especially on routes between New England and the West Indies.
- Shipments from Europe and English colonies had to go through England first.
- Any imports to England from the colonies had to come in ships built and owned by British subjects.
- The colonies could sell key, such as tobacco and sugar, only to England.
