Sugar Act

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The Sugar Act (citation 4 Geo. III c. 15), passed on April 5 1764, was a revenue-raising Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. It revised the earlier Sugar and Molasses Act, which had imposed a tax of sixpence per gallon on molasses in order to make English products cheaper than those from the French West Indies.

During the Seven Years War, known in America as the French and Indian War, the British government had substantially increased the National Debt to pay for the war, and considered that the colonists (who had been defended) should contribute to that. Colonists had largely evaded the earlier tax by bribing local officials. The Sugar Act, passed under the leadership of British Prime Minister George Grenville, reduced the tax from sixpence to threepence, but provided for the tax to be strictly enforced and expanded its scope to include wine, and other goods. The act also placed a 3-cent tax on sugar goods (such as cloth, wine, beer, tobacco, coffee and indigo) to the colonists. It also allowed officers to seize goods from smugglers without going to court. The Sugar Act and the new laws to control smuggling angered the colonists.

[edit] Effect on the colonies

The Act caused local production to increase in the colonies, but colonists viewed it as unfair, and it was one of the causes leading to the American Revolution. Although the colonists said to the British that this was unfair, they knew that if they were represented in Parliament, they would be widely outvoted. Protests against this Act led to the end of the act.

The prime mover behind the protests to the act was Samuel Adams. Claiming the Act to be against the British constitution, natural law and the Massachusetts charter (and therefore void) failed to incite either the other colonies or the bulk of Massachusetts citizens to protest. Switching tactics to emotional appeals and arguments that future, equally unrepresented, acts would affect the broader populace (especially land owners), Adams and his supporters were able to get some moderate groundswell of protest. This background level of dissent largely engendered by Adams helped to foment the more widespread resistance to the Stamp Act 1765.