Definition
Before 1763, Britain passed trade laws such as the Navigation Acts and the Molasses Act of 1733 but enforced them weakly. London was an ocean away and needed colonial help in its wars with France, so merchants smuggled goods and bribed customs officers, and elected colonial assemblies grew used to controlling taxes and local affairs. The British politician Edmund Burke praised "a wise and salutary neglect" in a speech in 1775, and historians adopted the phrase as the name for the policy. Britain ended it after 1763, when it began enforcing trade laws and taxing the colonies to pay its war debt.
Why it matters on the AP exam
The end of salutary neglect is a leading cause of the American Revolution on the exam. Colonists who had run their own affairs for decades saw the Sugar Act, the vice-admiralty courts, and the Stamp Act as attacks on their rights, and they answered with methods they already knew, such as smuggling and boycotts. Short-answer and essay prompts ask students to explain the policy, to treat 1763 as a turning point in continuity and change, or to place a source about British enforcement in its context. A common mistake is to say that "no taxation without representation" attacked salutary neglect, when colonists wanted a return to it.
In the sources
“…through a wise and salutary neglect…”
Connections
- Enumerated goods: the Navigation Acts that listed these goods were the trade laws Britain left loosely enforced
- Seven Years' War: the cost of the war ended the policy after 1763
- Sugar Act: in 1764 it began the new enforcement and the new revenue
- Vice-admiralty courts: after 1763 more smuggling cases went to courts without juries