Free Port Act 1766

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]

Free Ports, West Indies, etc. Act 1766
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Citation6 Geo. 3. c. 49

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]

Background

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 denable foreign supplies to enter the British system. Four ports were approved in Jamaica, along with two ports in Dominica.[6]

References
  1. John E. Crowley. "Common-place: Object Lessons". Historycooperative.org. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
  2. Parry, John H (1954). "Reviewed work: The Free Port System in the British West Indies, F. Armytage". Revista de Historia de América (37/38): 364–367. JSTOR 20136860.
  3. "Navigation Acts | Definition, Purpose, Effects, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com.
  4. Library, Clements (22 July 2019). "An Empire of Free Ports".
  5. Marshall, P. J. (2019). "The Making of the Free Ports Act". Edmund Burke and the British Empire in the West Indies: Wealth, Power, and Slavery. Oxford: Oxford Academic. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198841203.003.0007.
  6. Kleiser, R. Grant (26 April 2021). "An Empire of Free Ports: British Commercial Imperialism in the 1766 Free Port Act". Journal of British Studies. 60 (2): 334–361. doi:10.1017/jbr.2020.250 – via Cambridge University Press.
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