Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
HOW DID THE SUGAR TRADE CONTRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION?
Distilling rum was not the only American involvement with the sugar trade. Parliament at-
tempted a mercantilist economic policy, seeking to keep gold and silver locked inside the
British Empire. Taxes were levied on goods imported from outside the empire to raise rev-
enue and discourage foreign imports. The resulting Sugar Act (1764) and Molasses Act
(1783) set in motion a long train of unanticipated consequences. To avoid paying duties on
French West Indian sugar and molasses, many American sea captains practiced smugglers'
wiles. Royal customs agents responded with unaccustomed vigor, and colonial anger turned
violent. A royal revenue cutter, The Gaspée, harrying smugglers, ran aground in Providen-
ce Harbor. An angry band of Rhode Islanders boarded the cutter, thrashed the crew, and set
her afire. In Boston, with resentment rising against other taxes and import duties, angry co-
lonials took to the streets with shouts of “No taxation without representation.” The Boston
Tea Party followed. And the War for Independence soon ascended.
WHAT ROLE DID SUGAR PLAY IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS?
The connection between sugar and war reasserted itself during the long struggle between
Britain and Napoleon. Following Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805, British sea power
was sufficiently strong (and confident) to blockade the principal ports of Europe. Sugar was
now in extremely short supply. A new source of sugar was needed to assuage mankind's
oldest addiction. It came from Prussia; in 1747 a Berlin experimenter obtained sugar crys-
tals from sugar beet. A half-century of improving the sugar beet and sugar-crystal refining
led Napoleon (1811) to set aside 80,000 acres for sugar beet planting, to establish six sugar
beet schools, and to build ten sugar beet factories. The sugar shortage was alleviated. Sugar
plant cultivation was now established in temperate climates. And, significantly for the fu-
ture, state-sponsored science had been given a powerful boost.
HOW DID THE EAST INDIANS COME TO THE AMERICAS?
Two decades after Waterloo, the British Navy effected one of the most important and long-
lasting interventions in sugarcane politics. Slavery was outlawed in all units of the Brit-
ish Empire in 1834, and not long after, the British Navy was given orders to suppress the
slave trade. Slave ships of every flag were brought under the navy's guns, but quite often
slave ships were faster than men of war. If the slave ship flew another country's flag or the
flag of a country where slavery was legal (the United States, for example), the British “in-
vasion” of a slave ship created problems of international diplomacy, sometimes resulting
in the British captain being sued for loss of legal cargo. But if and when slave cargo was
seized, slaves were set ashore as free persons in the nearest, most suitable port. In the Indi-
an Ocean these ports included those on the islands of Madagascar, the Seychelles, Reunion,
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