Robert Longley. History and Government Expert. Robert Longley is a U. Facebook Facebook. Updated September 02, Key Takeaways: Sugar Act of The Sugar Act of was a law enacted by Britain to increase British revenues by preventing the smuggling of molasses into the American colonies and enforcing the collection of higher taxes and duties.
British Prime Minister George Grenville proposed the Sugar Act as a way for Britain to generate revenue to protect its foreign colonies and pay its debts from the French and Indian Wars. In the American colonies, the Sugar Act was especially harmful to merchants and consumers in the New England seaports. Colonial opposition to the Sugar Act was led by Samuel Adams and James Otis, who contended that the duties imposed by the Sugar Act represented taxation without representation.
The British Stamp Act of caused more widespread and violent protests throughout the colonies, eventually leading to the first battle of the American Revolution on April 19, Featured Video.
Cite this Article Format. Longley, Robert. Definition and History. What Was the Sugar Act? The Root Causes of the American Revolution. American Revolution: The Boston Massacre. Grenville, a former First Lord of the Treasury, wanted the American colonies to contribute to the costs of maintaining a British Army in North America after the war. Grenville saw this as only fair since the taxes on the British people had increased dramatically during the war.
One of the first measures passed to raise revenue from the American colonies was a tax on sugar. Grenville designed the American Revenue Act of l, commonly known as the Sugar Act, to replace the Sugar and Molasses Act of which was to expire. The earlier act had imposed a tax of six pence per gallon on molasses which was imported from the French West Indies or the Dutch West Indies.
The Sugar and Molasses Act of was not planned as a revenue bill but as a means to regulate trade. Due to wide-spread smuggling and bribery, the tax on molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies was rarely collected. While the new act cut the tax on molasses in half, Grenville anticipated that more aggressive collection of the duties would bring in more money.
This part of the act affected New England, where distilling sugar and molasses into rum was a major industry. Passage of the Currency Act on April 19, effective September 1, banned colonial paper currency, requiring the Sugar Act to be paid in gold and silver.
More than half of the articles in the Sugar Act dealt with enforcement. It required Customs collectors to report to their colonial posts, instead of appointing underlings who were susceptible to bribery.
Masters of vessels had to post a bond and carry affidavits attesting to the legality of their cargo. At every stop in their voyage officials examined their paperwork, assisted in their efforts by the Royal Navy. Those caught with illegal cargo were no longer tried by a sympathetic local jury but at a new vice-admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Their ruin was not complete. Learn about Boston's reaction to the Stamp Act. I, pp. Norton, , ; Edmund S. If even the smallest technicality was not attended to, ships' captains could have their entire cargo seized.
Further, the act could be employed in some cases regarding local trade along the east coast, and in many cases put unrealistic restrictions on this trade. In addition to a restriction of trade, many colonists felt the Sugar Act constituted a restriction of justice. The act allowed customs officials to transfer smuggling cases from colonial courts with juries to juryless vice- admiralty courts in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Until , vice-admiralty judges were awarded five percent of all confiscated cargo and ships, a clear incentive to come to a guilty verdict.
The vice-admiralty courts also reversed traditional judicial ideology, by burdening the defendant with the task of disproving the charge of smuggling rather than assuming innocence until guilt was proven.
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