British Colonial Trade Regulations, 1651-1764

British Colonial Trade Regulations, 1651-1764 Boston Harbor in the 18th century Act/Regulation Date Significance/Features Navigation Act 1651 Required all crews to be at least 1/2 English in nationality Most goods must be carried on English or colonial ships Goal: eliminate Dutch competition from colonial trading routes Navigation Act 1660 Required all colonial trade to be on English ships Master and 3/4 of crew must be English Long list of "enumerated goods" developed, including tobacco, sugar, rice, that could only be shipped to England or an English colony Staple Act 1663 Required goods bound for the colonies shipped from Africa, Asia, or Europe to first be landed in England before shipping to America. Plantation Duty Act 1673 Required colonial ship captains to guarantee that they would deliver enumerated goods to England or suffer financial penalties. Colonial arm of English customs offices established Navigation Act 1696 Further tightened earlier Navigation Acts Created system of admiralty courts to enforce trade regulations and punish smugglers Customs officials given power to issue writs of assistance to board ships and search for smuggled goods Woolens Act 1699 To prevent competition with English producers, prohibited colonial export of woolen cloth. Hat Act 1732 Prohibited export of colonial-produced hats. Molasses Act 1733 All non-English imported molasses taxed heavily to encourage importation of British West Indian molasses. American Revenue Act (Sugar Act) 1764 Lord Grenville institutes new policies to generate revenue by combining new duties on imported goods with strict collectiion provisions. Tax on French West Indies molasses was actually lowered, but enforcement attempted to end bribes and smuggling. Based on American Journey by Goldfied, et al., in addition to other sources. Please cite this source when appropriate: Feldmeth, Greg D. "Early British Colonial Trade Regulations," U.S. History Resources http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/USHistory.html (Revised 24 June 2004).