The Sugar and Quartering Acts

Britain had decisively won the French and Indian War (1756-1763), as the North American portion of the Seven Years' War was called. It defeated France and Spain and seized French territory in Canada and between the Mississippi River and the Appalachians. But the war created two problems for the British that ultimately led to the loss of thirteen of its American colonies.

The British national debt had almost doubled during the war, so it needed new sources of revenue. And it had gained control of restive populations of French Catholics in Quebec and France's Indian allies in the West. In fact, the Ottawa tribe, led by Pontiac, fought a three-year war (1763-1766) against the British that started only three months after the Treaty of Paris had ended the French and Indian War. Thus, Britain decided to maintain a standing army in North America, instead of merely garrisoning frontier forts. But this army added to the costs of the colonies.

In April 1764, the British parliament passed the Sugar Act to fund the British army in America and to pay down the national debt. The Sugar Act actually cut the existing duty on molasses in half, but it required ship captains to keep detailed records of their cargo so they could be inspected by customs officials. It made customs violations subject to a juryless trial in admiralty court instead of a jury trial in civilian court. Instead of being tried by a jury of their sympathetic neighbors who enjoyed consuming untaxed molasses, the admiralty judges got a percentage of the cargoes that they condemned. The effect was to increase sharply the anticipated revenue from the tax and to make smuggling dangerous.

The merchants/smugglers of Boston and New York were outraged that a faraway parliament could impose a tax, especially one that could not be ignored. And they were furious that they were deprived of their right as Englishmen to a jury trial. Samuel Adams and James Otis of Boston organized protests against the Sugar Act. In response, General Thomas Gage, the commander of the British army in North America, pulled troops off the frontier and stationed most of them in New York because the New York legislature had agreed to pay for their housing and food. But the New York legislature's generosity reached its limit after one year, and it refused to renew the financial support. Gage was stuck with several thousand troops that needed to be housed, but nowhere to put them.

Gage asked the British parliament to do something. In a fateful move, it enacted the Quartering Act in May 1765 (260 years ago this month). It required the colonial legislatures to erect barracks or provide public housing at their own expense for the troops and to provide them with food, beer, rum, firewood, and other necessities. New York, where most of the troops were stationed, refused; so the troops had to stay in cramped and unhealthy quarters on ships in the harbor. The New York Sons of Liberty organized to protest the imposition of taxation without representation, and violence between colonials and British officials ensued. They raised a Liberty Pole on the Commons on Broadway, directly across from the barracks where some soldiers were stationed, which became the site of periodic battles between the Sons of Liberty and the British soldiers. The Liberty Pole was cut down and restored many times over the next decade. There was a stand-off between the New York legislature and the British parliament in London.

Meanwhile, in Boston, conflict arose between the customs officials and the gentlemen smugglers. Merchants and ship captains were punished for smuggling, failing to declare cargoes, and storing illicit goods in warehouses. The Sons of Liberty organized in Boston as well. Eventually, all the colonies except Pennsylvania refused to quarter the troops, and there only with some shenanigans by the governor.

In 1767, the British parliament ordered the New York governor and assembly suspended until such time as they paid for quartering the soldiers. Under duress, they agreed. The parliament passed the Townshend Acts in July 1767 to teach the colonials a lesson. Duties were imposed on the import of a wide variety of goods, the customs enforcement machinery was strengthened, and a monopoly on tea imports was given to the British East India Company.

Due to the pressure on New York, the assembly and many of its leading citizens gradually acquiesced to quartering soldiers. But the Boston Sons of Liberty had much more at stake since Boston was the center of much of America's maritime trade, especially of its smuggling. The Massachusetts House sent a circular letter to all the other colonies to organize a boycott of British goods that were subject to the tax. The Colonial Secretary in London, Lord Hillsborough, ordered the Massachusetts House to rescind the boycott letter, which it refused to do. As a result of the unrest, the customs commissioner in Boston requested more troops, so Lord Hillsborough sent the 50-gun HMS Romney and four regiments of troops to Boston in 1768. Tensions rose.

Within two years, there would be blood on the snow on Boston streets as British soldiers fired on colonials in the Boston Massacre. Three years later, the Boston Harbor was awash with the East India Company's tea. The Sugar Act and Quartering Act, only a few short years before, had been the first steps on the road to revolution.