Rum · History · Short entry
Molasses Act (1733)
A British act taxing foreign molasses, rum and sugar imported into the American colonies, to protect the British sugar islands. Widely evaded, it was made perpetual and revised by the Sugar Act of 1764.
May 1733 (in force 25 December 1733)
Duties of nine pence a gallon on foreign rum and spirits, six pence a gallon on foreign molasses and syrups, and five shillings per hundredweight on foreign sugar.
Why it mattered
To secure and encourage the trade of the British sugar colonies, as the act's title states, against foreign-grown molasses, rum and sugar.
The act and its sequel
"An act for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his Majesty's sugar colonies in America" set duties of nine pence a gallon on foreign rum or spirits, six pence a gallon on foreign molasses or syrups and five shillings per hundredweight on foreign sugar, for five years from 25 December 1733. It was systematically disregarded and remained largely a dead letter.
The Sugar Act of 1764 made the 1733 act perpetual, cut the molasses duty to three pence a gallon, and barred foreign-colonial rum from British America. Rhode Island, with some thirty rum distilleries, protested that the duty would ruin both its Caribbean and its African slave trades.
How it connects
Ingredient
- related Molasses
Story
- story A history of rum
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