#sugar act

(Thousands descend on Downtown Chicago during the No Kings Day protest on Oct. 18, 2025. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago)

If the news is right with their “protest” numbers are even close less than 2% of the entire Nation protested, but 22% of the Nation voted YOUR President into office. Let that sink into your thick heads.

Here is a little history lesson about how protests against the "KING" in the U.S. really works.

In 1763, at the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars the American Colonies foolishly believed that the “Unwritten British Constitution” would protect their Rights and the British governmental system. A governmental system with a House of Commons, House of Lords and the monarch sharing power. This was an acceptable combination of democracy, oligarchy and tyranny. This would not happen.

On 7 October 1763 King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 following the Treaty of Paris (1763) ending the Seven Years War and transferring French held territories in North America to Great Britain. This proclamation stopped westward expansion past the Appalachian Mountains. The exclusion of exploration and expansion of Trans-Appalachia did not sit well with the Thirteen Colonies and would be the first of many nails in the coffin of British rule in North America. The prohibition on expansion would be ended in 1768 by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix but the damage was already done.

The British Government was buried under debt do to the French and Indian wars, because the bulk of that debt was created in the defense of the American Colonies the “Crown” thought it only right that the Colonies should pay much more in taxes for that protection. In 1764 the Sugar Act was imposed to generate monies for the Crown. The precursor to the Sugar Tax was the Molasses Act of 1733, the act was never fully “taxed” because of smuggling, bribery or intimidation of customs officials effectively voiding the law.

The Colonies were increasingly upset with increased British control, up to that point they felt they were equal partners in ruling. This started an ever increasing rift between British loyalists and the more patriotic separatists looking for more autonomy.

In 1765, the start of the American Revolution, the Stamp Act or Duties in American Colonies Act 1765 was imposed on the American Colonies. The Stamp Act required most printed materials to be printed on paper from London, embossed with a revenue stamp. The Stamp Act was greatly unpopular in the Colonies, as it was seen as a violation of their rights as Englishmen to not be taxed without their consent and representation in parliament. Because of this view the slogan "No taxation without representation" was born.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

The American colonists were British subjects but did not receive (in their interpretation) the rights and privileges that go along with being a British subject. This was, of course, their main grievance which started the war.

He did win the French and Indian or Seven Years War (treaty signed in 1763) not many years before the revolution took off. This war did protect the American colonists, however, it also angered them because afterwards they were not able to live on the land west of the line determined in the Proclamation of 1763 and many of the tax laws which the colonists disliked were a way of making up the revenue spent on this war (for example: Stamp Act, Sugar Act, Tea Act, etc.).

Sources: the following sources were used - the collected letters/writings of Alexander Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton the Revolution, Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton, The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton by Allan McLane Hamilton, Hamilton by Richard Syllia, and Charles Cerami’s book called Young Patriots.

How many people want their entire paycheck to go to the government in the form of taxes? Hmm, not many, huh? Is it not the right of the person who goes to work every day and works hard to earn a paycheck to decide how to spend his money and which charities to fund? (I’m sure that it’s not a coincidence that that place we go to earn money is called “work” as in hard work.) Does the government have the right to dictate to us, the people who earn our money, how that money should be spent? Or does that person have the right to decide how to spend that hard earned money? Whether it be on an expensive health insurance program, or on a fancy boat, or maybe a vacation. Perhaps he is working hard to send his children to private school, all while putting away money for their college education. Well, the Colonists certainly thought that taxation without representation was unfair. It’s one of the very things that caused them to declare their own independence.

Sugar Act:

On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed the Sugar and Molasses Act. Also known as the Plantation Act or the Revenue Act, this act, essentially, attempted to prevent the colonies from “smuggling” sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies (Source). The colonies had been avoiding extraordinary taxes on goods from England by instead importing the goods from other countries.

So, England decided to fix this by reducing the tax yet at the same time “enforcing the collection of duties” (Source). For example, the tax on molasses from England went from 6 pence per gallon down to three. At the same time, they added tax to new goods such as coffee, wine, calico, and cambric.

These duties went to placing a larger British military presence in the colonies. This allowed them to seize any cargo that violated the new laws. Then, the violators’ punishment was decided not by the colonial courts, but instead by the British admiralty courts.

Essentially, the act had three overall goals: Curb illegal trade and establish their law while protecting their own trading. Lastly, they wanted Americans to pay for their own protection. Their finances had begun to run low thanks to the French Indian War.

The Currency Act:

On September 1, 1764, Parliament passed the Currency Act. The intent of this bill was “to regulate the issue and legal tender status of paper money in the colonial economy” (Source). Britain had outlawed the Colonial minting of currency.

The little bit of gold and silver coins the colonies did have went to paying for imports, leaving very little for anything they actually needed. As a result, merchants and shopkeepers were forced to accept any form of payments the customers could manage.

Always wanting to work around British laws, Colonists issued Bills of Credit, which was not technically money. These credits were backed by taxes, land, and property. Over time, these not-actually-money bills developed very different purposes. “For instance, some bills were used to pay private debts to British merchants, others to pay public debt for government services, and others to pay taxes” (Source). To make it only more confusing, there was no defined value to the currency. Britain could see only one way to solve the problem, force the colonies to establish a “hard currency system based on the pound sterling” (Source).

The Stamp Act:

On March 22, 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. This act imposed taxes on every piece of printer paper. “Ship’s papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers,” as well as playing cards, dice, pamphlets, cards, and almanacs (Source). All were taxed. All the money raised on paper taxes went to protecting the American frontier.

Unlike the previous acts, which seemed to simply want to regulate commerce through taxes and duties, this act was using taxes to raise money. Furthermore, they were raising money in the colonies without asking the Colonists’ approval; without bringing it to the colonial legislatures.

In response, the Colonists not only refused to use stamps, but also burned them and rioted. Then, the Colonists formed a Stamp Act Congress, in which representatives from nine colonies met to “frame resolutions of ‘rights and grievances’ and to petition the king and Parliament for repeal of the objectionable measures” (Source). One American newspaper even went so far as to suggest that the hated British stamps should take on the form of the skull and bones, as depicted in the featured image.

By 1766, Britain had repealed the Stamp Act, replacing it with the Declaratory Act, which gave them the authority to “direct taxation anywhere within the empire” (Source).

The Quartering Act:

On March 24, 1765, Parliament passed the Quartering Act. This required the colonies to “provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns and villages” (Source).

The Colonists resented being forced to take in British soldiers. They felt that they should have the right to offer housing to the soldiers. So, they decided to refuse following the act, particularly in New York.

As a result, Parliament passed the New York Restraining Act. This “prohibited the royal governor of New York from signing any further legislation until the assembly complied with the Quartering Act” (Source). The governor of New York managed to convince Parliament that they were compliying, when, in fact, they were actually housing the British soldiers on a Massachusetts island, where barracks already existed, but where “soldiers had no hope of keeping the peace in a city riled by the Townshend Revenue Acts” (Source). They complied to house the British in public places, but continued to refuse housing them in private homes.

This left the British with no choice but to pitch tents. It also resulted in intense tensions between the British and American armies, especially in Boston, where many of the soldiers were pitching their tents. Unfortunately, they stayed around until George Washington and the Continental Army drove them out in 1776.

[Below: The Stamp Act Congress]

These four acts did a lot to push the Colonists to declare their independence. Parliament and the king were not listening to their needs, but imposing unjust laws. So, the Colonists took matters into their own hands. They would, over time, form a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We’d be smart to take a page from their notebooks (tax or no tax).

Up Next:

Grievance #3 - The British Parliament established another act called the sugar act, which basically raised taxes against imported sugars, coffee, indigos, wine, and more. 

In order for the British to pay off their large war debt, they have decided to tax the colonists in America. Oh wait, that's us. So what is the first thing they tax? Sugar. Along with coffee, wine, foreign textiles, and indigo. I read this act and it said "that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this kingdom, and for extending and securing the navigation and commerce between Great Britain and your Majesty's dominions in America". To sum that up, it says the taxes are for helping the colonies. No they are not. If they were, then the taxes would not be so absurd. 

"For every hundred weight avoirdupois of such foreign white or clayed sugars, one pound two shillings". No one has that kind of money. Is Britain trying to bankrupt every single colony?