There were three types of British colonies: royal, proprietary, and self-governing. Each type had its own characteristics. Royal colonies were owned by the king.

How did English ideas about government and economy influence life in the 13 colonies? Parliament passed the Navigation Acts that stated, English sailors and English ships could only trade with English colonies. This way, they could tax them on imported goods.

This was a big deal because it introduced the concepts of limited government, rule of law, and due process. It also helped create the nation’s Parliament (kind of like Congress in the U.S.). The Magna Carta was a government document that limited the power of the king of England and protected the rights of the nobility.

The English colonists in America brought with them three main concepts:

• The need for an ordered social system, or government.
• The idea of limited government, that is, that government should not be all-powerful.
• The concept of representative government — a government that serves the will of the people.

The colonies along the eastern coast of North America were formed under different types of charter, but most developed representative democratic governments to rule their territories. When the first Pilgrims voyaged to the New World, a bizarre twist of fate created a spirit of self-government.

Other colonies were founded purely in hopes of creating new trade opportunities and profits for investors. The colonies are often divided up into three regions including the New England Colonies, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies.

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.

These laws were known as Navigation Acts. Their purpose was to regulate the trade of the empire and to enable the mother country to derive a profit from the colonies which had been planted overseas.

The most direct way for colonists to avoid the Navigation Acts was also the riskiest: smuggling. Smuggling colonial goods to foreign ports and foreign goods to the colonies was big business in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Enumerated commodities had a monopoly on the British market since British buyers could purchase those goods only from the British colonies. In general, the colonists obeyed the Trade and Navigation Acts when they benefitted them and they ignored them when they ran contrary to colonial interests.

The navigation acts were passed to restrict colonial trade and to stop the colonies from exporting goods to foreign markets.

In 1651, the British Parliament, in the first of what became known as the Navigation Acts, declared that only English ships would be allowed to bring goods into England, and that the North American colonies could only export its commodities, such as tobacco and sugar, to England.

In October of 1651, the English Parliament passed its Navigation Acts of 1651. These acts were designed to tighten the government’s control over trade between England, its colonies, and the rest of the world. England’s American colonies could only export their goods in English ships.

England passed the Navigation acts because they viewed colonists’ pursuit of foreign market as an economic threat. Ships sailed back to England where colonists used molasses and sugar to make fun for sale in Africa or Europe.

The money collected by the Stamp Act was to be used to help pay the costs of defending and protecting the American frontier near the Appalachian Mountains (10,000 troops were to be stationed on the American frontier for this purpose).

Navigation Acts

Virginia

1673–The Act of 1673 stated that all goods not bonded in England must have a duty and bond placed on them when the ship reached the colonies. The colonial governor collected the bond and duty and thus started a tradition that continued through the Revolution.

A series of British regulations which taxed goods imported by the colonies from places other than Britain, or otherwise sought to control and regulate colonial trade.

England