- Jahrgang 64 (2019)
- Vol. 64 (2019)
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- Ausgabe 3
- Nr. 3
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- Seiten 349 - 372
- pp. 349 - 372
Imperial Political Economy and Its Discontents in Colonial New York City, 1664-1763
Seiten 349 - 372
DOI https://doi.org/10.33675/AMST/2019/3/4
open-access
This publication is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivatives 4.0. (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Based on the apparent incongruity between the ideology of liberty within the British Empire and the extensive trade regulations that governed its economic life, this article explores efforts to circumvent the Navigation Acts undertaken in New York or by its citizens between the English conquest and the end of the Seven Years War. It argues that a remarkably wide range of evasive measures were employed, forcing us to re-examine both what it meant to be “loyal” and the functioning of imperial political economy, one influential model of which even provided intellectual justification for extremely subversive behavior. The article demonstrates that licit activities aimed against the Navigation Acts could be highly damaging, while their illicit counterparts might support the spirit, if not the letter, of British imperial policy.
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