Naval Stores
NAVAL STORES
Naval stores are products used in the construction and maintenance of wooden ships, such as timber, tar, pitch, and resin. These materials are derived from conifers (evergreens) which early American settlers found to be plentiful in the colonies. Pine timbers were also used for masts. The abundance of pine in the forests of New England and the Carolinas fostered a thriving colonial export business as well as a shipbuilding industry. Naval stores were a commodity of the triangular trade routes, since sea captains exchanged them for black slaves on the West African coast. Naval stores were also exported to England, a country that had exhausted much of its own forests and therefore relied on the colonial timber to maintain and sustain its fleets. Although England severely limited American imports after the American Revolution (1775–1783), naval stores remained among the few commodities that were exempt from the policy.
See also: American Revolution, Lumber, North Carolina, Slavery, South Carolina, Triangular Trade