"The Consumption of Rum by the Inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland, is briefly recommended": The British Molasses Act of 1733 - Part 1.

As I feared…I often take on these ideas to boost my level of understanding on a particular subject and I get so deep into the research and writing that I fail to actually publish anything. What is intended as some short blog post on a subject turns into an involved research project. Such is the life and mind of the obsessed. With that, we begin part one of looking into the events leading up to the Molasses Act of 1733 and the state of rum in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada.

In 1733 the English Parliament passed the Molasses Act imposing a tax of six pence per gallon on imports of molasses from non-English colonies. In the 100 years preceding the Molasses Act the West Indies sugar and rum industry was not only born but reached a level of popularity and expanse that saw it push out of the Caribbean to the east coast of North America and many corners of the British Empire. 

The Molasses Act, 1733

It’s a simple fact that without the sugar industry rum would not exist. In 1627 Henry Powell landed on the Island of Barbados with settlers and slaves intent on setting up a permanent settlement. In 1642 sugar cane was introduced to the island by Dutch merchants which soon kicked off the sugar industry in the Caribbean which Barbados initially dominated. With the refinement of sugar and its by-product molasses, the common understanding is that Caribbean rum was soon born out of plantation slaves discovering that molasses could be fermented into an alcoholic beverage and then it evolved from there. Through a series of unfortunate events that included insect infestations, fires, hurricanes and droughts, by 1720 Barbados' dominance in sugar began to wane in favor of the Leeward Islands and Jamaica. As Barbados suffered French Islands like Saint-Dominique began harnessing more modern farming techniques, better irrigation, cultivating better varieties of sugar cane and developing better water powered mills for processing, all of which translated into higher outputs and better profits. Overall British sugar was losing its grip to the French.

Considering the wider, colonial context, the British could not abide being overtaken. Beginning in the early 1600’s, the following 100 years had England plunged into a series of wars and conflicts as the struggle to maintain and build an empire continued. Nova Scotia (including the land now recognized as New Brunswick) had started as a French colony and, in part or whole, had changed hands back and forth between the French, Dutch, Scottish and English. Furthermore, the land only represented a small portion of the value of the new world colonies. Vast and over-abundant cod fishing grounds stretching from Newfoundland to New England (think Cape Cod) were also a stake. Cod fish that was dried and cured with salt represented a valuable trans-Atlantic industry that connected England, western Europe and the Mediterranean to the east coast of North America since the 1400’s.

Cod would become key to the development and growth of the Caribbean sugar industry. The labor used on sugar plantations was found with slaves. In the beginning the source of slaves was either indentured slaves from Britain and Europe or natives of North America and the Caribbean Islands. These two groups proved to be very ineffective as the Europeans soon feel ill from the tropical heat and diseases like malaria and yellow fever. Adding to the problem, the indentured slaves were also short in supply. The native slaves were also susceptible to these tropical diseases as well as other European diseases like smallpox. Soon labor was sourced in west Africa where the people more resistant to tropical diseases and there was a large population to exploit. Slave labor required food to be able to toil for long hours in the tropical heat. Since the islands produced very little in the way of agricultural food as the available land was too valuable for anything but sugar cane, the early primary food source was imported salt beef. Soon salt cod would be sourced as a cheaper and more stable source of food due to its longevity and abundance. This gave salt cod producers an expanded market for the portion of their over-abundant catch that for one reason or another was deemed unfit for European markets (too small, poor curing, etc.).

“In 1645 a New England ship took pipe to the Canaries, then bought African slaves in the Cape Verde Islands and sold them in Barbados, returning to Boston with wine, sugar, salt and tobacco. Shipments of salt cod followed, and soon salt cod, slaves and molasses became commercially linked.”^[1]

Despite the early reference to New England the source of the cod feeding slaves stretched from New England to Newfoundland. Nova Scotia in fact became know for a smaller dried cod not appealing to the European market but idea for West Indies plantations.

The trouble with this triangular trade system between eastern North America, Africa and the Caribbean is that it quickly became unbalanced. In other words, not every point was able to keep up with supply and demand. This was due mainly to the Acts of Navigation and Trade first enacted by the British in 1651. Basically, this long series of laws dictated the ways and means of British shipping, trade and commerce among the colonies and with other countries. In its simplest form this act dictated that British ships do business with British products from British colonies. Seems straight forward enough, but that was hardly the case.

When it comes to the business of plantations, the Acts of Navigation and Trade became a little muddied in the waters. The primary difference between New England rum traditions and those of Newfoundland is that Newfoundland quickly developed the practice of importing rum produced in the Caribbean, primarily Jamaica. To this day there is a tradition surrounding a notoriously harsh and terrible form of rum linked to Newfoundland known as “Screech.” This day and age, Screech is produced by a reputable distiller and bottled by the province and is, in fact, quite tasty - however; this wasn’t always the case. The saying goes that Newfoundland sent Jamaican plantation owners their worst salt cod and the plantation owners responded in kind by sending their worst rum north. New Englanders, on the other hand, quickly developed their own rum industry by importing molasses from the Caribbean and producing the rum themselves.

Located directly in between the two, Nova Scotia, coincidentally seems to have done both historically, importing rum from both New England and the West Indies and producing it locally with the first distillery founded in 1751. In as early as 1711 the outright need for rum is referenced by the British Colonel Vetch writing about the high cost of provisions for his men:

“All provisions...(are)...very dear, particularly Rum, which must be instead of Beer, which the Severity of the winter freezes in that cold country...”[2]

However, it seems that it was primarily the New England importation of molasses that became the source of trouble. As I mentioned earlier, the English production of sugar and molasses was not able to keep pace with French production. On top of hearty production, French wine and Brandy makers blocked the import of rum and molasses for fear that the cheaper spirit would hurt their existing monopoly. Nor were English producers able to keep up with overall demand for molasses by New England distillers. On the flip side, England possessed the majority of the cod fishing grounds and the available land to properly salt and dry the fish to the acceptable degree known as “West Indies Cure” (a particularly hard, extra dry cure that would withstand the hot Caribbean climate). As a result, the French fishing fleet could not meet the demand of plantation owners for salt cod to feed their labour.

“Soon the British Empire was not only too small a market for New England’s cod catch but too small a molasses producer for New England’s distilleries. Total British West Indies molasses production was less than two-thirds of Rhode Island alone imported. The French colonies needed New England cod and New England needed French Molasses.”^[3]

In the case of both the New England distillers and the French sugar plantations, business was initially very good. The needs of businessmen, whether it be those supplying the fish, the ships, or the molasses dictated what was bought and sold where, largely ignoring the Acts of Navigation and Trade. It was at the point when some New England traders stopped taking British molasses on trade in lieu of cheap French molasses that the shoe dropped and the British colonial powers began to stir. 

The plantation owners in the British West indies advocated in Parliament first that all trade with France be banned. When this did not pass, they suggested tariffs. In 1733 the English Parliament imposed a Molasses act imposing a tax of six pence per gallon on imports of molasses from non-English colonies. This tax also extended to the immediate siblings of molasses; sugar and rum. The plan was simple, to make French molasses more expensive than that of the English and force distillers to buy their molasses from English plantations.

Nothing is ever simple...

Part 2 coming soon. 

From the National Archives, UK. A pamphlet about the sugar trade written by John Ashley, plantation owner, Barbados 2 October, 1733 (Click here to read the full transcrip)

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[1] p 82, Cod. Mark Kurlansky. 1997 Random House.

[2] p 17, Tempered by Rum: Rum in the History of the Maritime Provinces Edited by James H. Morrison and James Moreira. Pottersfield Press, 1988

[3] p 90. Kurlansky