1620: Agreement between the Crown and the Virginia Company

A. Company allows Crown to collect a duty of 1 shilling

per pound of incoming tobacco.

B. Crown prohibits the growing of tobacco in Virginia,

thus giving the Company a monopoly on tobacco

production.

1650: Parliament forbids foreign ships from trading in the

colonies without a special license.

1651: CROMWELL'S NAVIGATION ACT

A. No goods from Asia, Africa, or America could be

imported into England, Ireland, or the colonies

except in ships of which the owner, the master,

and the majority of the crew were English.

(NOTE: Colonials, including American colonists,

were considered English under this legislation).

B. No European goods could be imported into England,

Ireland, or the colonies except in English ships or

ships of the colony of origin.

C. Foreign goods could not be imported into England

except directly from the place of production.

D. Aliens could not import fish into England.

E. Aliens prohibited from the English coastal trade.

1660: NAVIGATION ACT OF 1660

A. No goods or commodities, regardless of origin, could

be brought in or out of a colony except in English-

built or English-owned ships of which the master and

3/4 of the crew was English.

B. Enumerated articles (including sugar, tobacco, and

indigo) of colonial growth and manufacture could be

shipped only to England or her colonies.

1662: NAVIGATION ACT OF 1662 ("ACT OF FRAUDS")

Defined "English" ships, for purposes of the Navigation

Act of 1660, were those actually built in England or bought

before 1662. (This was to thwart Dutch merchants, who, after

1660, had begun setting up "dummy" corporations in England,

selling their ships to these corporations -- thereby making

them "English" ships -- and participating in the English

colonial trade despite the Navigation Act of 1660).

1663: NAVIGATION ACT OF 1663

A. European goods designed for the colonies must be

shipped from England on English ships.

B. Colonial governors made responsible for enforcement.

1673: NAVIGATION ACT OF 1673

A. Duties upon enumerated products shipped from one

plantation to another must be assessed at "Ports of

Clearance" (including individual plantation wharfs).

B. A special corps of Customs Commissioners is

established to collect the duties.

1696: NAVIGATION ACT OF 1696:

A. Confined all colonial trade to English ships.

B. Expanded powers of colonial customs officers,

including the right of forcible entry.

C. Required that bonds be posted on enumerated

commodities, even when plantation duties had been paid

already.

D. Specified the supremacy of the Navigation Acts over

conflicting colonial laws.