Chapter 14: Navigation Restraints and Expensive Molasses. Intent on portraying England as the evil giant, American history books, both Christian and secular, dishonestly pounce on the Navigation Acts as another example of England's exploitation of the colonists.
The Christian book, The Light and the Glory, says this about the Navigation Acts: "The governor's next measure was the strict enforcement of the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1663, which required all colonial trade to be carried exclusively in British ships manned by British crews.
In effect, this meant that the colonies could trade only with England, and it was the first of a series of increasingly oppressive, greed-motivated measures which Britain would impose on the colonies in the ensuing century." That certainly does sound unjust, doesn't it? The only problem is that it's not true. I get the distinct impression that most Christians who write American history books have never read the pertinent statutes they attack.
If history writers are going to make accusations, they had better read the laws in question. The Navigation Act of 1651. Ironically, the first Navigation Act, that of 1651, was passed when there was no English monarch on the throne. It was passed by the Puritan Parliament during the rule of Oliver Cromwell. The act was aimed at the Dutch, not the American colonies. In 1651, the Netherlands was the dominant shipping power of Europe, and the English wanted to gain the upper hand on the Dutch.
At that time, much of Dutch shipping involved carrying goods to England and her colonies. So the Navigation Act of 1651 required all shipments of merchandise to England and its colonies from Asia, Africa, and the Americas to be transported in English-owned ships manned by an English captain with primarily English crewmen. The act specifically provided that ships owned by the American colonies were considered English ships for the purposes of the act.
And since the colonists were English citizens, they met the qualification of the crew members being primarily English. The act also stated that merchandise produced in Europe could be transported to England or its colonies only on ships of the country of manufacturer or on English ships. In other words, if a French merchant wanted to export French wine to England or its colonies, he had to ship it either on a French ship or on an English ship. He could not transport it on a Dutch ship.
As could be expected, the Navigation Act had a drastic impact on the Dutch economy. As a result, it eventually led to war between England and the Netherlands. England won that war, and it soon eclipsed the Netherlands as the dominant global shipping power. In the end, the first Navigation Act was a huge boon to the colonists in America. Since the majority of English ships were made with American lumber, the act helped the American lumber and shipbuilding industries to thrive.
By 1775, one-third of all British ships were built in the American colonies. The Navigation Acts also provided a ready demand for American sailors and ship captains. Moreover, these acts required that fish sold in England had to be caught by English fishing vessels manned by English crews. Because the American colonists met these qualifications, this proved to be a huge boon to the New England fishing industry. The Navigation Acts gave the colonists a ready-made entry into English trade.
It also gave them an advantage over European competitors in trade with England, a populous and prosperous nation. The reason is that because of the Navigation Acts, goods from the American colonies were more affordable to the English people than were goods from other countries. In short, the Navigation Acts turned out to be a blessing to the colonies, not oppressive, greed-motivated measures. Other Navigation Acts.
When the English king was restored to the throne in 1660, all the acts of the Puritan Parliament were declared null and void because they had not been approved by the monarch as required by English law. Nevertheless, the new Parliament passed a nearly identical Navigation Act in 1660, and this time the act was given royal approval. In 1663, Parliament passed the Act for the Encouragement of Trade, which is sometimes referred to as the Second Navigation Act, or as the Staple Act.
One source says this about this act: "From the American standpoint, the Staple Act meant higher prices and a blatant attempt of the English to exploit America for the benefit of the English merchants. There was no need for the Staple Act to be passed. The act served no purpose other than the enrichment of the English people and strengthening of the central government." Contrary to what that writer has said, the reason for the Staple Act was the trade wars between England and the other European powers.
The other European countries had passed laws to prevent England from carrying on unrestricted commerce with the colonies of these other countries. So the Staple Act was basically a payback. It meant that all European goods bound for America, or other English colonies, had to be shipped through England or Wales first. In England, the goods would be unloaded, inspected, taxed, and reloaded. This merchandise then had to be carried to America in English ships, which again included colonial ships.
The Staple Act also placed certain restrictions on seven commodities produced in the English colonies: sugar, tobacco, ginger, cotton, wool, indigo, and Jamaica wood. The colonies were free to sell these commodities to other countries, but they had to ship the commodities first to a port in England or Wales and pay duties on these exports before they could continue on their way. This increased the shipping time and made these commodities more expensive in foreign countries.
The seven commodities listed primarily affected the West Indies and the southern colonies. Thus, the Staple Act had little impact on the middle colonies and the New England colonies. The two American university professors quoted previously, Gary M. Walton and Gary Rockoff, came to this conclusion about the Navigation and Staple Acts: "The requirements of shipping the listed items to English ports were less onerous than we might initially suppose.
First, because the Americans and the English shared general ties of blood and language, and more specifically, because their credit contacts were more easily established, the colonists would have dealt primarily with English merchants anyway. Second, duties charged on commodities that were largely re-exported, such as tobacco, were remitted entirely or in large part to the colonies." The Molasses Act of 1733.
The first act of Parliament that might have had particularly disruptive impact on the New England colonies was the Molasses Act of 1733. The name Molasses Act is merely a euphemism used by American history textbooks. A more accurate name would be the Rum Act, because the first item addressed in the act is rum, not molasses. Furthermore, the molasses being taxed was used primarily for making rum.
The act levied a nine-penny tax on each gallon of rum and a six-penny tax on each gallon of molasses purchased from non-British sugar colonies. At the time of the act, rum imported from the Caribbean sold for 50 to 60 pence per gallon in the colonies. So the rum tax was fairly hefty. The reason for the tax was that the French and Spanish colonies were able to sell their rum and molasses more cheaply than were the British sugar colonies. The British sugar colonies needed help to compete with them.
The effect of this act was to make rum more expensive for British citizens everywhere, whether in the colonies, Great Britain, or Ireland. What about the fairness of the Molasses Act of 1733? American history textbooks point out that this tax benefited the English West Indies colonies at the expense of the American colonists. This is only partly true. The full truth is that it benefited the English West Indies at the expense of all British citizens around the world, whether in America, England, Scotland, Ireland.
All I can say is, welcome to the world of politics. That type of trade protectionism has probably always been around and is still with us today. To illustrate, for a period of time, American taxpayers have subsidized the American ethanol industry to the tune of about $6 billion annually. Corn farmers and people in the ethanol industry have benefited at the expense of everyone else in America. Another example of U.S. subsidies are those aiding the American sugar industry.
American taxpayers spend about $1.5 billion annually in subsidies to U.S. sugar growers, despite the fact that there are only about 50,000 such growers. So a few farmers benefit at the expense of everyone else. Fairly or unfairly, that's how the political process works. What the Molasses Act demonstrated was that even colonists could effectively lobby Parliament. The Molasses Act didn't benefit the people of Britain. It benefited the sugar growers of the English West Indies.
The English government didn't want to see its Caribbean colonies sink into financial ruin. Yet, neither did it want to see the 13 American colonies descend into economic despair. If this act placed an excessive burden on the American colonists, they needed to do some serious lobbying of their own in Parliament. However, rather than trusting in God and following legal channels to find relief, the colonists decided to break the law.