| Act of Parliament | |
 | |
| Citation | 6 Geo. 3. c. 49 |
|---|---|
The English Free Port Act opened six British ports in the West Indies to foreign merchants, and enabled English colonists to conduct trade with French and Spanish colonies. [1]
It was passed in 1766 following the Seven Years’ War and prior to the American Revolution. The Act was a modified version of one in use by the French and Dutch. [2]
Prior to 1766, the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660 regulated British trade, restricting colonial trade to England and limiting foreign imports to promote the interests of the British Empire. [3]
As English colonists continued to settle in the Americas, the British West Indies became unable to produce sufficient quantities of commodities needed in other parts of the Atlantic. [4] This included products such as sugar, raw cotton, and molasses. [5] To address these shortages, the Free Port Act enabled foreign supplies to enter the British system. Four ports were approved in Jamaica, along with two ports in Dominica. [6]
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height in the 19th and early 20th century, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 per cent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km2 (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional, legal, linguistic, and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was described as "the empire on which the sun never sets", as the Sun was always shining on at least one of its territories.
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, or the Thirteen American Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centuries, the American Enlightenment led these colonies to revolution, and declaring full independence in July 1776, which was achieved in 1783 with the Continental Army's victory over the British in the American Revolutionary War.
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies, and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time. The operations of the company had a profound effect on the global balance of trade, almost single-handedly reversing the trend of eastward drain of Western bullion, seen since Roman times.
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were people from Central and West Africa who had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids; Europeans gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade. The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on labour for the production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with one another to create overseas empires.
The British colonization of the Americas is the history of establishment of control, settlement, and colonization of the continents of the Americas by England, Scotland and, after 1707, Great Britain. Colonization efforts began in the late 16th century with failed attempts by England to establish permanent colonies in the North. The first of the permanent English colonies in the Americas was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. Approximately 30,000 Algonquian peoples lived in the region at the time. Over the next several centuries more colonies were established in North America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Though most British colonies in the Americas eventually gained independence, some colonies have opted to remain under Britain's jurisdiction as British Overseas Territories.
The Tariff Act of 1789 was the first major piece of legislation passed in the United States after the ratification of the United States Constitution. It had two purposes: to protect manufacturing industries developing in the nation and to raise revenue for the federal government. It was sponsored by Congressman James Madison, passed by the 1st United States Congress, and signed into law by President George Washington. The act levied a 50¢ per ton duty on goods imported by foreign ships; American-owned vessels were charged 6¢ per ton.
The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially known as Great Britain, was a sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The unitary state was governed by a single parliament at the Palace of Westminster, but distinct legal systems—English law and Scots law—remained in use.
The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The laws also regulated England's fisheries and restricted foreigners' participation in its colonial trade. While based on earlier precedents, they were first enacted in 1651 under the Commonwealth.
The American Colonies Act 1766, commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the amendment of the Sugar Act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. The declaration stated that the Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies.
The Townshend Acts or Townshend Duties, were a series of British acts of Parliament passed during 1767 and 1768 introducing a series of taxes and regulations to fund administration of the British colonies in America. They are named after the Chancellor of the Exchequer who proposed the program. Historians vary slightly as to which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five are often listed:
The Sugar Act 1764 or Sugar Act 1763, also known as the American Revenue Act 1764 or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on 5 April 1764. The preamble to the act stated: "it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom ... and ... it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised ... for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same." The earlier Molasses Act 1733, which had imposed a tax of six pence per gallon of molasses, had never been effectively collected due to colonial evasion. By reducing the rate by half and increasing measures to enforce the tax, Parliament hoped that the tax would actually be collected. These incidents increased the colonists' concerns about the intent of the British Parliament and helped the growing movement that became the American Revolution.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
The United States Virgin Islands, often abbreviated USVI, are a group of islands and cays located in the Lesser Antilles of the Eastern Caribbean, consisting of three main islands and fifty smaller islets and cays. Like many of their Caribbean neighbors, the history of the islands is characterized by native Amerindian settlement, European colonization, and the Atlantic slave trade.
Scottish colonisation of the Americas comprised a number of failed or abandoned Scottish settlements in North America; a colony at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama; and a number of wholly or largely Scottish settlements made after the Acts of Union 1707, and those made by the enforced resettlement after the Battle of Culloden and the Highland Clearances.
The Molasses Act 1733 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that imposed a tax of six pence per gallon on imports of molasses from non-British colonies. Parliament created the act largely at the insistence of large plantation owners in the British West Indies. The Act was passed not to raise revenue but to regulate trade by making British products cheaper than those from the French West Indies. The Act greatly affected the significant colonial molasses trade.
The Treaty of Amity and Commerce established formal diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and France during the American Revolutionary War. It was signed on February 6, 1778 in Paris, together with its sister agreement, the Treaty of Alliance, and a separate, secret clause allowing Spain and other European nations to join the alliance. These were the first treaties negotiated by the fledgling United States, and the resulting alliance proved pivotal to American victory in the war; the agreements are sometimes collectively known as the Franco-American Alliance or the Treaties of Alliance.
Diplomacy in the Revolutionary War had an important impact on the Revolution, as the United States evolved an independent foreign policy.
Proto-globalization or early modern globalization is a period of the history of globalization roughly spanning the years between 1600 and 1800, following the period of archaic globalization. First introduced by historians A. G. Hopkins and Christopher Bayly, the term describes the phase of increasing trade links and cultural exchange that characterized the period immediately preceding the advent of so-called "modern globalization" in the 19th century.
The English overseas possessions, also known as the English colonial empire, comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England during the centuries before the Acts of Union of 1707 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland created the Kingdom of Great Britain. The many English possessions then became the foundation of the British Empire and its fast-growing naval and mercantile power, which until then had yet to overtake those of the Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of Portugal, and the Crown of Castile.
The colonial molasses trade occurred throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the European colonies in the Americas. Molasses was a major trading product in the Americas, being produced by enslaved Africans on sugar plantations on European colonies. The good was a major import for the British North American colonies, which used molasses to produce rum, especially distilleries in New England. The finished product was then exported to Europe as part of the triangular trade.