Was The Sugar Interest To Blame For The American Revolution?

The Revolutionary War between the colonists and England sparked the United States into becoming their own independent nation. The Sugar Interest, a group of British men that lived in England and had overseers in the West Indies doing work for them, said that colonists could only buy sugar from the British West Indies, which spiraled into multiple infractions between the British and the Colonists. Many facets can be put forth into the reasoning for the Revolution occurring, but some argue that the Sugar Interest could be blamed for it in its entirety. The Sugar Interest, often members of British Parliament, wanted to protect their money and would do just about anything to do so. With the Treaty of 1763, the British gave the French back their

The Sugar Interest already hiked up the price of sugar for the colonists, and that led to many acts being placed on the colonists which caused complications. First came the Currency Act of 1764. This was practically reinforcing the Currency Act of 1751 because Parliament was scared of the colonists bonding together. This act was created just for the New England colonies, and it really made money have no value as England prohibited the colonists from issuing new bills or reissuing new currency. Soon the Sugar Act was enforced also after already having been in existence for a while. The Sugar Interest wanted to be positive the colonists were not buying anyone else’s rum except for English rum, so the Act places customs duties on non-British sugar and prohibited any rum that was not British. Most colonists actually did not mind this and thought it was constitutional, except for Boston who grew to be quite angry especially since smugglers had a harder time of making a living now. Next, comes the Stamp Act, which was a miniscule tax on just about everything made of paper. Some colonies already had their own type of Stamp Act imposed, so the extra tax made most colonists very angry especially because it was an internal tax; therefore, it is unconstitutional. Due to the Stamp Act, Boston acted in extreme fashions, as the Liberty Boys tarred and feathered and terrorized many

This refusal of purchase from those in the New World consequently caused the Sugar Act to be lowered and the Stamp Act to be repealed. This sounds like Colonists were now getting what they wanted and felt they deserved, but then a new set of Acts were imposed on the colonists. The Declaratory, Townshend, and Revenue Acts were all passed afterwards. The Declaratory Act stated that Parliament has supreme rule over every colonial matter. The Townshend and Revenue Acts were made as a compromise between Benjamin Franklin and Townshend, Prime Minister of England, to give both sides a little snippet of what they wanted. These forced Parliament to only use external taxes. The main idea of these Acts were to raise money for the troops who were protecting citizens in the West from the natives and any other invaders there could have been, as both the economies in the colonies and in England dropped after the war. Eventually, a small vocal minority of colonists concentrated in Boston express their hatred towards England. The Boston Massacre occurred, where only seven people died. Colonists very much so exaggerated this event as they blame everything on the British and say they themselves did nothing wrong. This “massacre” was on the same day the Townshend Act was repealed and Nonimportation halted. Quickly after, Bostonian smugglers began sneaking in Dutch tea as they were mad at the East India Tea