History of the United States I / Unit 4 USH1 0459 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
The Navigation Acts
The idea
The sixteen fifty-one Navigation Ordinance required that only English ships carry goods between England and the colonies, and that the captain and three-fourths of the crew be English. It listed enumerated articles shippable only to England or English colonies: sugar, tobacco, indigo, rice, molasses, and naval stores. The sixteen sixty Act restated it to secure a monopoly on colonial imports, the sixteen sixty-three Staple Act barred importing non-English goods, and the sixteen seventy-three Plantation Duties Act taxed enumerated articles moving between colonies.
In practice
The sixteen ninety-six Act creating the Board of Trade, with vice-admiralty courts prosecuting customs violators without a jury.
Where people slip
Writs of assistance let officials board and search vessels suspected of carrying smuggled goods. Remember both devices. Trial without jury and search without particular cause become the two constitutional grievances of Unit 05, and they were built here, seventy years earlier, for commercial reasons.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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