Sugar Act

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Sugar Act, (1764), in U.S. colonial history, British legislation aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies and at providing increased revenues to fund enlarged British Empire responsibilities following the French and Indian War. Actually a reinvigoration of the largely ineffective Molasses Act of 1733, the Sugar Act provided for strong customs enforcement of the duties on refined sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from non-British Caribbean sources.

Protests had been received from America against the enforcement of the Molasses Act, together with a plea that the duty be set at one penny per gallon. Although warnings were issued that the traffic could bear no more than that, the government of Prime Minister George Grenville refused to listen and placed a three-penny duty upon foreign molasses in the act (the preamble of which bluntly declared that its purpose was to raise money for military expenses). The act thus granted a virtual monopoly of the American market to British West Indies sugarcane planters. Early colonial protests at these duties were ended when the tax was lowered two years later.

The protected price of British sugar actually benefited New England distillers, though they did not appreciate it. More objectionable to the colonists were the stricter bonding regulations for shipmasters, whose cargoes were subject to seizure and confiscation by British customs commissioners and who were placed under the authority of the Vice-Admiralty Court in distant Nova Scotia if they violated the trade rules or failed to pay duties. As a result of the Sugar Act, the earlier clandestine trade in foreign sugar and, thus, much colonial maritime commerce were severely hampered.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy McKenna.