What Was The Significance Of The Mother Country

The Navigation Act of 1651 was an attempt to put more control over where and who England could trade with. It was decided that only English ships could carry goods that were going to and from the colonies. The English government was trying to have a close watch on England’s Imports and Exports. This

The purpose of mercantilism was to increase power, wealth and self sufficiency for the mother countries. England, Spain and france would often compete with each other to gain colonies in regions such as North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. Raw materials such as lumber, wool, iron, cotton, tobacco, rice, and indigo were what England needed to be able to create manufactured goods. However, mercantilism in the American colonies were more dependent on the manufactured products of England. The Navigation Acts that were a series of laws were enforced by England so that they could make the American colonies more dependent on the manufactured goods of England.The American colonists were expected to buy manufactured goods like cloth, furniture,knives,

For example, as directed by the Navigation laws, Virginia tobacco planters who played by the rules could only sell their products to England, even if other countries were offering a higher price. The Americans answer to this was to largely ignore the mercantile system and smuggle their products to other ports.

Soon the Quartering Act was passed, directing the colonies to provide quarters for British soldiers. Americans found this oppressive because it meant that soldiers were placed in colonial homes. In 1764 Parliament passed the Stamp Act, putting a duty on most printed materials. This was a normal tax for the British as it had been going on in Britain for a long time, and it made sense that the rest of their empire would pay the same tax. This placed a burden on merchants and the colonial elite who did most legal transactions and read the newspapers. Also passed in the same year was the Declaratory Act, which stated that the colonies were subject to the will of Parliament. This made a lot of sense to the British, as Parliament was their ruling body, but, to the colonies who had become used to their own government during the years of salutory neglect, this was a direct threat to their way of life.

In 1761 the British began to reinforce writs of assistance, laws that granted customs officials the authority to conduct random searches of property to seek out goods on which required duties had not been paid, not only in public establishments but in private homes. The next step was the Sugar Act of 1764, and it quickly became apparent that the purpose of the act was to extract revenue from America.  The Molasses Act of 1733 had placed a tax of six pence per gallon on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies.  In 1764 the British lowered the tax to three pence but now eventually decided to enforce it.  In addition, taxes were to be placed on other items such as wines, coffee, and textile products, and other restrictions were applied, this upset the colonists.  Madaras L, SoRelle J (2011) & Wood S. G. (2003)

Navigation Acts- During the reign of Charles II, these acts were devised to allow English control of colonial trade. The Navigation Act of 1651 required hat goods be carried on ships owned by English or Colonial merchants. Later on, the acts kept the British sugar trade in hands of British merchants.

To insure that the American colonies would contribute to this overall sense of British wealth, various Navigation Acts were passed beginning in 1650 to regulate trade between the colonies, England, and the rest of the world. In many cases, ships carrying American products to other European countries had to stop in England first to pay duties before continuing onward. Also, goods traveling to and from America had to be

It was not until 1764 when Britain started to interfere with the colonies. The colonies had some independence so they were not used to being told what to do. Because the British government had gone in debt fighting France, they decided that the colonies had to help pay for their own defense. To raise this money, parliament made a new law, sugar act. It required payment of a tariff on imported items such as molasses, sugar, coffee and certain wines. During this time, tariffs were used to regulate trade; however, the colonist felt this was just

England, in an effort to establish greater control over North American colonies in the mid-1600s under the rule of King Charles II, implemented the Navigation Acts to regulate colonial commerce, along with increased British law in North America, most notably in New England. The Navigation Acts essentially created a monopoly in which colonial settlements could only trade with England, thus contributing to England's overall wealth and power, according to the theory of mercantilism. Before King Charles II passed the Navigational Acts, the English Parliament created laws that kept Dutch ships out of the American colonies, limiting some colonial trade opportunity. The first of these Navigational Acts kept the colonies from trading with any nation other than England, along with requiring the colonists that grew tobacco to only sell it to England. The second act required any country that wished to trade with the colonies go through England first, giving England an opportunity to tax them.

One of the crucial conflicts must be the imperial trade with the Great Britain. In the Declaration of Independence, the Americans express their irritation for “cutting off our trade with all parts of the world” (The American Pageant, A32). Instead, in 1763 Britain enforced the Navigation Acts in order to demonstrate their powers and wealth. Following five years with a series of Acts, the British exports to the America had increased and were around £2 million per year. In 1771, increasing tea exports caused the British exports to reach its peak of £4.2 million. Until The Association’s complete boycott of British goods went into effect in 1775, British exported about an average of £2.5 million per year. In contrast, in 1775, British exports had dropped to £200 thousand (Document B). As a consequence of heavy exportation, it harmed the colonial economy. If the Americans continued to be part of Great Britain, America's economy had been endangered by the further currency shortage and

In the 1650’s, the British government longed to embellish its authority and establish more centralized control governing its Colonies. Parliament established the Navigation Acts which only allowed British vessels to ferry

Navigation acts: laws that restricted the use of foreign ships for the use of trade trade between Britain and its colonies

The Navigation Acts were put on the colonies as a form of no taxation without representation initially. This act was created to limit the colonies to only receiving goods from the English. Due to this act, the English made money off the colonies. In the beginning,

The Act was created in order to control the use of paper money. Parliament did not appreciate the colonists trading their items and causing fights over if the trade is fair or not.

Navigation Acts – acts passed by British Parliament to regulate colonial trade so that raw materials were produced for the mother country and