Colonial Trade essays

Colonial Trade essays In the 17th and 18th centuries, Great Britain decided to make territorial claims in North America. To what extent, however, did they decide to control these colonies? To a partial extent were the American colonies controlled in the topics of commerce, and to a lesser extent as far as religion and colonial government. Commerce was restricted partially due to the Navigation Acts, but these were ignored through Salutary Neglect, while Religion remained untouched as many ethnic diverse groups were welcomed, and Colonial government controlled within through the power of the purse, but the Dominion of New England took that away. Commerce was controlled by the mother country to a partial extent. The policy of mercantilism, used to benefit the mother country, was designed to value exportation and import as little as necessary and therefore, the colonists were not allowed free trade and were limited to virtually one market, and under this such policy of mercantilism, the English passed the Navigation Acts to further limit the exportation possibilities of the colonies. Under this policy, certain goods had to be shipped through Great Britain before being shipped to foreign countries as well as having to be shipped on a British-owned ship (75%), so to collect export duties and later even going to limiting the competition of American cloth and iron manufactures. The Board of Trade was enacted to regulate these such laws and enforce them. However, it did very little and out of 8563 colonial laws that it reviewed from 1696-1776 and had only 469 of them disapproved. On the other end of the spectrum, Great Britain a lso followed the unspoken policy of Salutary Neglect at times to undermine such policies as mercantilism and the Navigation Acts. The policy allowed the colonies to be self-governing and didn't enforce the Navigation Acts thus allowing smugglers to compete in the market, but many found it more profitable to obey the commercial rules, whi...