Definition
A Navigation Act of 1660 listed, or enumerated, valuable colonial products such as sugar and tobacco, along with cotton, indigo, and some dyes, and required colonists to ship them only to England or another English colony. Parliament later added goods such as rice and naval stores to the list. The rule fit the economic theory of mercantilism, in which colonies supplied raw materials to the mother country and bought its manufactured goods. Planters gained a protected market, partly because England banned tobacco farming at home, but they could sell only inside the empire even when prices fell.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Enumerated goods show how mercantilism worked in practice: the empire's trade laws pulled colonial products into English ports, which raised England's wealth and customs revenue. Colonists gained a guaranteed market but lost the chance to sell to the highest bidder, and the resulting smuggling and resentment were tolerated through salutary neglect until 1763. Questions on transatlantic trade ask students to explain the goals and effects of the Navigation Acts, to weigh their benefits and costs for colonists, and to connect them to the tighter enforcement after 1763 that helped cause the Revolution.
Connections
- Salutary neglect: Britain left laws like this one loosely enforced until 1763
- Sugar Act: in 1764 Parliament enforced trade laws like this one more strictly
- Vice-admiralty courts: they heard cases against colonists who broke these trade laws
- Middle Passage: enslaved Africans carried by this voyage grew much of the sugar, tobacco, and rice on the list