Question

Why did many traders ignore the Navigation Acts and buy sugar and molasses from non-English colonies in the West Indies?

a) To promote economic self-sufficiency
b) To maintain good relations with England
c) To challenge British colonial authority
d) To comply with the Navigation Acts

Answer 1

Traders ignored the Navigation Acts to buy sugar and molasses from non-English colonies in the West Indies due to convenience and profitability, driven by the colonists' self-interest and desire for economic prosperity.

Step-by-step explanation:

Many traders ignored the Navigation Acts and bought sugar and molasses from non-English colonies in the West Indies because it was convenient and profitable for them to do so, not because they were coerced. In the eighteenth century, economic growth and lower tax rates in British North America provided the colonists with a decent standard of living and disposable income.

They wanted to participate in the consumer revolution happening in Europe and purchase luxury goods which were considered luxuries in the seventeenth century. The colonists' self-interest and desire for economic prosperity drove them to buy sugar and molasses from non-English colonies.