Sugar Act

SUGAR ACT. The Revenue Act of 1764, usually known as the Sugar Act, had two purposes. First, it was intended to raise money from trade to and between the British colonies in America. It levied import duties on a list of enumerated commodities (including sugar, indigo, coffee, wine, and various cloths) and made the Molasses Act of 1733 perpetual, although it cut the duty on molasses in half, from six pence to three pence per gallon, to make evasion of the tax less attractive. Monies raised in America were reserved "to be from time to time disposed of by Parliament towards defraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the British colonies and plantations in America" (section 11). Second, it revamped and reinvigorated the customs service charged with the collection of these import duties. Two provisions attracted the most colonial opposition. By the terms of the first, legal cases in which the validity of seizures of ships and goods were determined could now be adjudicated in a new vice-admiralty court in Halifax, Nova Scotia, instead of in local colonial courts that were more susceptible to popular pressure. By virtue of the second, customs officials were relieved of liability for unlawful seizures if "the judge or court indicates there was probable cause for seizure" (section 46).

SEE ALSO Grenville Acts; Vice-Admiralty Courts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jensen, Merrill, ed. English Historical Documents. Vol. 9: American Colonial Documents to 1776. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955.

Thomas, Peter D. G. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution, 1763–1767. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975.

                              revised by Harold E. Selesky