Final answer:
The British Parliament passed the Navigation Acts and other trade laws imposing restrictions on American colonial trade, requiring colonists to trade certain enumerated goods only within the empire and pay taxes on imports, which led to increasing colonial resentment.
Step-by-step explanation:
British Trade Laws and the American Colonies
The British Parliament enacted a series of trade laws during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries designed to ensure that the American colonies participated in a trade system that benefited England. The Navigation Acts were a cornerstone of this system. They began with the 1651 ordinance requiring all goods shipped to and from the colonies to be transported on English or colonial ships, with the majority of the crew being English. This was followed by further acts, such as the Navigation Act of 1660, which added a list of enumerated articles like sugar, tobacco, and cotton, which could only be traded within the empire, and the Staple Act of 1663, insisting that foreign goods pass through English ports for taxation before reaching the colonies.
Other measures aimed to restrict the colonial economy and protect English producers. For example, the Woolens Act of 1699 and the Hat Act of 1732 prohibited colonists from producing and exporting certain goods, forcing them to rely on British imports and curtailing their potential profitability. The Molasses Act of 1733, which raised duties on sugar products from non-British territories, further exemplified restrictive trade policies, though it was poorly enforced during a period of 'salutary neglect.'
Resentment grew as these trade and manufacturing restrictions, along with taxes and enforcement methods, such as the absence of jury trials in admiralty courts for smugglers, were seen as violations of the colonists' rights, and this helped spark the American Revolution.