What effects did the economic conflict over the navigation acts have on both Britain and its colonies?

Lesson Plan

Rhode Island Colonists led by John Brown burn the British revenue cutter Gaspee

The British had an empire to run. The way that they kept their economy healthy was through a system called mercantilism. Mercantilism was a popular economic philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In this system, the British colonies were moneymakers for the mother country. The British put restrictions on how their colonies spent their money so that they could control their economies. They put limits on what goods the colonies could produce, whose ships they could use, and most importantly, with whom they could trade. The British even put taxes called duties on imported goods to discourage this practice. This pushed the colonists to buy only British goods, instead of goods from other European countries.

The distance from Britain and the size of the British Empire was an advantage for the colonies. It was expensive to send British troops to the colonies. For many years, the British government’s philosophy was one of “salutary neglect.” This meant that they would pass laws to regulate trade in the colonies, but they did not do much to enforce them. The British knew that the colonies were benefiting from goods from the Dutch, French, and Spanish, however. Eventually, in 1763, they began to enforce many of the trade restrictions and even passed new ones.

The Navigation Acts and the Sugar Act were two of the laws enacted to restrict colonial trade. Acts like these led to rebellion and corruption in the colonies. Colonists, particularly in New England, rebelled against these acts by illegally smuggling goods in and out of the colonies. Ships from the colonies often loaded their holds with illegal goods from the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indies. The smugglers would pay bribes to British customs officials who were hired to regulate trade in the colonies. These officials also made a modest salary from the British, so they were benefitting from all sides. The American juries that tried smugglers, in times when they were actually caught, rarely found them guilty. Because they were gaining so much power, smugglers increased their secret trade to almost every port in the colonies. It is estimated that over 700,000 British pounds were brought into the American colonies each year at this time.

Trade and Taxation

Boston Harbor, circa 1746, was home to a successful colonial merchant fleet.

England continued to tax the colonies. But since trade and taxation were difficult to control from far away, England made an agreement with the colonies. They would continue to regulate trade but allow colonists the right to levy their own taxes.

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The French and Indian War put this delicate agreement to the test. Because the war was expensive, the British believed that colonists should help pay for it. They argued that they had protected the colonists from French and Indian threats. As a result, new taxes were levied by the British, which horrified the colonists.

Between the taxes they imposed and the measures the British Navy took to arrest smugglers, colonists were becoming increasingly angry. American shippers became more and more rebellious against trade restrictions with other countries. All of these actions served as stepping stones to the Revolution.

1. What is the concept of mercantilism?
2. Why were the Navigation Acts so important to the British and why did they generally alienate the colonists?
3. What is meant by the term “salutary neglect” and what did it mean for the colonies?

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The parliament abolished the tax on grain to drive down the cost of English grain to sell it abroad for making people elsewhere dependent on England. Similarly, imposing a ban on the import of French liquor, was to encourage the manufacture of domestic English gin from English grain. A central Bank of England was established in 1690 to stabilize the national currency and to control interest rates. In 1707, Parliament forced Scotland into a union with England, which became the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

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Navigation Acts

The parliament began hedging in the colonial economies by imposing a system of trade regulations to get the colonies to work for England. This system of ‘Navigation Acts’ made its first appearance in 1651, when Parliament forbade the shipping of colonial goods to England in anything but English ships which was a real windfall for the English shipping industry, due to losing market share on the North Atlantic to the Dutch.

Parliament’s Ratcheted Control

Parliament gradually ratcheted its control over colonial trade upwards where the colonies were prevented from shipping goods not just to England except in English ships, but to anyone else. Then the colonial shippers were prevented from shipping certain enumerated articles like sugar or indigo or military stores to any place but England. Navigation Acts prevented the colonies from shipping any goods anywhere without first stopping in an English port to have their cargoes loaded and unloaded; resulting in providing work for English dockworkers, stevedores, and longshoremen; and also an opportunity to regulate and tax, what was being shipped.

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England’s War With Dutch and French

After economic warfare failed, because the regulation had failed to drive the Dutch out of business, so England fought three successive wars with them in the 1660s and the 1670s. One of those wars netted the New Netherlands colony for England.

As French loomed up as the next threat, England went to war with them as well, from 1692 until 1697, and again from 1702 until 1713, not only in Europe, but also in America, Africa, and India.

Impact of Navigation Acts

3,000 miles of the ocean made enforcing Navigation Acts uneven. Smuggling was easy, and royal officials were poorly paid that bribery smoothed the departure of many a cargo for most unlicensed destinations. Many American fortunes were made before the American Revolution out of smuggling, and the royal officials who were representing the crown and the crown’s regulations found it very much in their interest to look the other way.

Another thing that softened the impact of the Navigation Acts was that mercantilists’ regulation benefitted the American colonies. The Iron Act of 1750 raised prices on iron imports from Scandinavia, which gave birth to an American iron industry.

The restrictions placed by the Navigation Acts, prevented the use of foreign shipping so that only English ships could be used in sending goods especially to and from England. Because of the restrictions, there was a greater need for English flagships, built by the people of New England, a great aid in building the New England shipping industry.

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France’s Stand on Navigation Acts

What softened the blow of the Navigation Acts was the involvement in Great Britain’s wars was an acknowledgment that colonists really were part of the British Empire. English was successful at mobilizing their North American colonies for warfare than the French. The great French Kings of the late 1600s and the early 1700s, Louis XIV and Louis XV were preoccupied with directing the war in Europe and working political power in France out of the hands of the French nobility, and less attention to making New France, Louisiana, a successful player in the great game of mercantilist thinking. New France’s immigration policies discouraged large-scale settlement, so the recruitment of a significant colonial military force was impossible.

Split Authority of New France

By 1700, the white population of Britain’s North American colonies was more than five times the size of New France. In New France, governmental authority was split three ways between the Military Governor, Civil Governor, and a Catholic Bishop. On paper, this was to create a healthy system of checks and balances. In practice, it created a system of rivalry, division, and demoralization with their jealousies. French couldn’t supply in terms of mercantilist thinking by means of their own manpower in America but were successful in supplying the Indian allies.

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Relation Between the French and Indians

The fact that the French were less in number in America made it unlikely to develop the land hunger in them that the English had. Thus, the Indians used the French just as much as the French used the Indians, as a resource for making retaliatory war on the English. In 1704, at French prompting and sponsorship, Indians swept down on the frontier settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 47 settlers and carrying more than 100 others into captivity.

The French had their own Indian troubles; the Iroquois Confederacy in northern and western New York remained implacably hostile to the French, and in 1729 the Natchez Indians staged one of the bloodiest Indian uprisings after New England’s King Philip’s War, in Louisiana. Neither the French in New France and Louisiana nor the English along the Atlantic seaboard was strong enough to do more than making the imperial seesaw go up and down in North America.

Common Questions about American History

Q: How did the Navigation Acts affect the colonists?

The English Parliament imposed a system of trade regulations known as the ‘Navigation Acts‘. Under this, the colonial shippers were prevented from shipping certain enumerated articles like sugar or indigo or military stores to any place but England. It also forbade the shipping of colonial goods to England in anything but English ships.

Q: What did the Navigation Acts do?

The Navigation Acts made smuggling easy. Besides, the restrictions placed by the Navigation Acts prevented the use of foreign shipping so that only English ships could be used in sending goods especially to and from England or other places.

Q: How was the government of New France structured?

The government of New France was split three ways between the Military Governor, Civil Governor, and a Catholic Bishop to create a healthy system but in practice, it created a system of rivalry, division, and demoralization.

Q: Did the French and Indians get along?

The French were less in number in America. Thus, the Indians used the French just as much as the French used the Indians, as a resource for making retaliatory war on the English. In 1704, at French prompting, Indians swept down on the frontier settlement of Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 47 settlers and carrying more than 100 others into captivity.

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