On November 16, 1775, Robert Dixon lay dying not far from Quebec. Among the first American troops commissioned by the Continental Congress, he was a sergeant in Matthew Smith’s Company of Thompson’s Rifle Battalion. The previous July, he had walked with his company from the backcountry of Pennsylvania all the way to Boston, a distance […]
BOOK REVIEW: 1764: The First Year of the American Revolutionby Ken Shumate (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2021) When did the Revolution begin? This seemingly simple question has been answered in a variety of ways over the last three centuries. John Adams thought it was effected in “the minds and hearts of the people” long before shots […]
The Townshend Revenue Act of 1767 awoke Americans to the fact that import duties for the purpose of revenue were taxes just as much as the direct internal taxation of the Stamp Act. The rejection of the Townshend duties by the colonies is a well-known story; less well known is the connection between a boycott […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Marine Corps veteran, software developer, and JAR contributor Ken Shumate on the history and significance of the Sugar, or Molasses, Act of 1733. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice […]
Remonstrance Against the Renewal Rhode Island merchants, prompted by the January letter from Boston merchants, requested that Governor Hopkins call a special meeting of the General Assembly. The merchants needed little prompting; they had already drafted preliminary essays explaining the economic problems caused by the Sugar Act. In fact, newspapers had for months been full […]
In early 1764, four British colonies in North America protested the enforcement and planned renewal of the about-to-expire Sugar Act of 1733 (also known as the Molasses Act of 1733)—an act that levied duties on foreign sugar, rum and molasses. Each protest was a statement of reasons against the renewal. These protests—lodged before passage of […]
“I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence.”— John Adams[1] A one penny per gallon import duty on molasses was the only important exception to the American demand for “no taxation without representation.” The duty was a tax, levied by Parliament in 1766, and collected […]
The Molasses Act of 1733 levied a duty of six pence per gallon on foreign molasses imported into British colonies in North America. The duty was not intended to raise revenue, but to be a prohibition against the importation of molasses from foreign sugar plantations. It was at first a nullity, a dead letter, but […]
The Sugar Act of 1764 levied taxes on imports to British colonies in North America. In doing so, the act marked a change in British colonial policy—an empire-shaking change—from commercial and trade regulation only, to taxation by Parliament. There was an earlier Sugar Act that established a foundation for the act of 1764. The First […]
