Today in History: The Navigation Acts

On this day (July 27) in 1663, England passed the Second Navigation Act mandating that all trade with its American colonies be transported in English ships and pass through English ports. This kept the colonies from taking advantage of global competition to get the best price possible for their export goods and similarly forced them to pay more for English imports as there was no legal foreign competition. (The colonists learned to skirt the law through smuggling.) The Navigation Acts built resentment towards England which would only grow in the following century.