Copyright Notice: This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Depiction of three wooden sailing ships in open water.
Navigation Acts: Dutch ships masquerading as English vessels, Photograph, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
The Navigation Acts (1651, 1660) were acts of Parliament intended to promote the self-sufficiency of the British Empire by restricting colonial trade to England and decreasing dependence on foreign imported goods. The Navigation Act of 1651, aimed primarily at the Dutch, required all trade between England and the colonies to be carried in English or colonial vessels, resulting in the Anglo-Dutch War in 1652. The Navigation Act of 1660 continued the policies set forth in the 1651 act and enumerated certain articles-sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, and ginger-that were to be shipped only to England or an English province. In effect, these acts created serious reductions in the trade of many North Carolina planters and merchants. To continue intercolonial trade, the colonies resorted to smuggling, particularly Albemarle County in North Carolina, the chief producer and exporter of tobacco, which carried on a profitable trade with the Massachusetts and Rhode Island colonies. The violations of the Navigation Acts led to passage of the Plantation Duty Act of 1673, one of the factors that led to Culpeper's Rebellion.

 

References:

Oscar T. Barck and Hugh T. Lefler, Colonial America (1965).

Lefler and William S. Powell, Colonial North Carolina: A History (1973).

Hugh F. Rankin, Upheaval in Albemarle: The Story of Culpeper's Rebellion, 1675-1689 (1962).

Additional Resources:

Culpepper's Rebellion, ANCHOR: https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/culpepers-rebellion

Image Credit:

Navigation Acts: Dutch ships masquerading as English vessels, Photograph, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Available from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/129378/The-Sampson-the-Salvadore-and-the-St-George-three-Dutch (accessed Septemeber 7, 2012).

Citation

Smith, Carmen Miner. "Navigation Acts (1651, 1660)." NCpedia. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. Accessed on February 19th, 2025. https://www.ncpedia.org/navigation-acts-1651-1660.