New England rum, the Molasses Act and the American Revolution

Why was rum distilled in New England?

No sugarcane grew in Boston, Newport or Medford. But the colonies had ships, timber, fish and grain, all needed on the sugar islands. On the return voyage, the ships brought back molasses. In New England it was fermented and distilled, and the resulting rum went to sailors, fishermen, taverns and the slave ships bound for Africa.

The cheapest molasses came from the French islands. France protected its own brandy industry and allowed little rum from its own colonies into the mother country, so planters on Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue had surplus molasses. New Englanders bought it eagerly. Common estimates put the number of rum distilleries in the colonies at more than 140 around 1770, though figures vary by source up to about 160.

At this time, rum was the everyday drink of the colonies. It was poured in taverns, paid out as part of wages, and served at elections, weddings and funerals. In terms of flavor it was probably simpler than Barbados rum, since it was produced quickly and in large quantities.

What was the Molasses Act of 1733?

The planters of the British sugar islands disliked the trade with the French. They pushed a law through London that imposed a duty of six pence per gallon, just over four liters, on molasses from foreign colonies. This was the Molasses Act of 1733. It was meant to force New Englanders to buy more expensive British molasses instead.

In practice, the law had little effect. The duty was so high that merchants evaded it, through smuggling, false paperwork and bribing customs officials. London largely let this happen for decades. For the distilleries, French molasses therefore remained cheap, and the rum trade kept growing.

Behind the law lay a conflict of interests within the Empire. The sugar planters of the British islands were well represented in Parliament and wanted to sell their molasses at a higher price. The merchants of New England, by contrast, depended on free trade with all the islands. The question of who was allowed to buy cheap molasses showed early on that the colonies carried less weight in London than the sugar islands did. This experience shaped the later conflict.

Sugar Act 1764: How molasses became a tax issue

After the Seven Years' War, Great Britain needed money. The Sugar Act of 1764 halved the molasses duty to three pence, but was now meant to actually be enforced. Customs officials, warships and special courts without juries made sure of it. For the distilleries, what had been a duty on paper became a real burden.

Resistance to this was among the early protests that gave rise to the principle of no taxation without representation. The colonies had no seats in Parliament in London, yet were expected to pay its duties. In 1766 London lowered the duty to one penny per gallon, now applying to all molasses, whether British or foreign. By then the dispute was already bound up with the Stamp Act of 1765 and further levies.

Was rum a cause of American independence?

John Adams, later the second President of the United States, wrote in retrospect that he did not know why one should be ashamed to admit that molasses was an essential ingredient in American independence. The line is often quoted, but it is a judgment made in hindsight, not a finding. Historians see the dispute over molasses as one thread among many, alongside taxation, trade law and self-government.

After independence, rum lost ground in North America. Access to the British Caribbean became harder, while settlers in the west had grain in abundance. Whiskey made from rye and corn, distilled from homegrown raw materials, gradually took rum's place. New England rum largely disappeared, partly because the slave voyages it depended on were banned in the United States from 1808.