How Did Rum Influence the Declaration of Independence?

00:00:10: He has cut off our trade with all parts of the world.

00:00:36: a commodity that fueled sailors and seamen, diplomats and drunks priests and pirates.

00:00:50: It was prized by planters in Jamaica, traders in Boston, and slavers in Africa.

00:00:58: it was such an important commodity that taxing helped cause the American War of Independence.

00:01:04: It's been known throughout history as Tot, Grog, Screech, Pirate Juice, Demon Water, Nelson's Blood and Kill

00:01:12: Devil.

00:01:13: Of course I'm not talking about tea—I am talking about rum!

00:01:17: And our episode today is about rum... ...and the Declaration of Independence.

00:01:23: What IS rum?

00:01:24: How has it made...?

00:01:25: Who drank from

00:01:26: them?!

00:01:26: Where did they drink it?

00:01:28: Why was such an important commodity throughout The Atlantic

00:01:31: World?...

00:01:32: How did British laws affecting the rum trade lead to The War of Independence?

00:01:37: and, Of course why is Rum associated with Pirates?

00:01:40: I'm most interested in that.

00:01:43: So here With me today To explain the importance of rum And the declaration of independence Is the world's leading expert on the history of rum In the Americas.

00:01:51: Jordan B Smith.

00:01:52: Welcome Jordan.

00:01:54: Thank you very much for having Me.

00:01:56: Jordan Smith is Associate Professor of History at Widener University in Pennsylvania where he specializes in the history of early America and global and Atlantic contexts.

00:02:08: His book, The Invention Of Rome, creating a quintessential Atlantic commodity was published by University of Pennsylvania Press in twenty-five.

00:02:18: A link is on the show notes.

00:02:20: so Jordan why don't you just start with the basics here?

00:02:23: What Is Rom And How Has It Made

00:02:27: So, rum is the distilled spirit made out of waste products from sugar production in a historic sense.

00:02:35: In the plantations of America's when sugarcane was damaged during storms and rats got to it... When drought came with no longer being able to be reduced into granular sugar It could instead be collected taken to the distillery.

00:02:55: It could be added together with water, with molasses left over by products of sugar production and all that would be kind of fermented allowing the sugars to turn into alcohol.

00:03:05: Load it up in a still which is closed system where you heat the whole mixture And after a couple of runs through it still, you would have rum.

00:03:22: Initially kind of clear very strong slightly sweet but also heavily alcoholic and then you can conceivably age into more desired and slightly smoother beverage.

00:03:35: And so rum remains really popular today.

00:03:37: One difference is that in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, rum was made out of waste products.

00:03:42: nowadays much as the rum has actually been made from sugar instead of molasses or other waste that were repurposed.

00:03:50: Great!

00:03:50: So rum you characterize as the quintessential Atlantic commodity?

00:03:56: Why don't just tell us how It started in the Atlantic.

00:03:59: I mean, I guess rum has existed or at least sugar-based alcohols are sugar based but you call it in your book an quintessentially Atlantic commodity.

00:04:11: so why don't you talk about that part of history please?

00:04:15: Absolutely!

00:04:15: So the first thing that i would point out is something that differentiates rum from some other commodities that historians and kind of general public have been really interested in Is that rum was omnipresent Right?

00:04:28: Rum touched the kind of business lives and individual lives, a vast majority people living around The Atlantic Basin in the seventeenth-and-eighteenth century.

00:04:39: And I think that gives us really unique view into the atlantic world as well as parts like Colonial and Revolutionary North America.

00:04:51: So...the argument i make is that rum is product OF that Atlantic World.

00:04:56: And so the ingredients and supplies necessary to make rum, whether that's sugarcane or copper or pewter stills.

00:05:05: Whether it is knowledge of fermentation even distillation all those things existed in different parts of the Atlantic world before colonization and before kind of settlement by Europeans in the sixteen hundreds.

00:05:23: But rum did not exist prior to the collision of cultures.

00:05:28: The collision of indigenous American cultures, West African cultures and British and European cultures.

00:05:36: And so the book tracks how different ideas of alcohol and how it was made and who could consume it.

00:05:44: It tracks How those intersected in a place like Barbados starting in the sixteenth twenties and sixteen thirties and sixteen forties to create something new.

00:05:54: And that new thing initially was called Kill Devil or Rumbolian, but eventually by the mid-to late seventeenth century it was known throughout different parts of the Atlantic world as

00:06:06: rum Cool.

00:06:08: and let's just talk about that first stage of the process which is also perhaps the most terrifying.

00:06:13: if you were having to work on a sugar plantation So why don't tell us little bit about that First Stage in making Rum?

00:06:20: What Was It Like?

00:06:23: So one of the things that was unique or kind of new in Ireland, French and British islands.

00:06:31: And in the West Indies so places like well The ones I focus on most are Barbados and Jamaica early-on and Antigua as Well is That they pioneered a New way Of producing sugar.

00:06:45: it Was this idea for an integrated plantation complex where A Plantation would be made up fields where sugar cane was grown, as well as the sites of early processing.

00:06:58: And so when sugar canes cut you have maybe twenty-four or forty eight hours until it begins to sour at a point that they could no longer be turned into that highly prized sugar.

00:07:08: and So rather than relying on mills and boiling houses somewhere else which is the model in places like Brazil British Caribbean planters instead moved those processes on to the individual plantations.

00:07:23: So usually you would have centralized mills maybe powered by water or powered by wind, or even powered by livestock moving around.

00:07:31: and then you would these kind of initial industrial steps taking place where you would boil to purify this sugar and eventually put it into molds to solidify into hardened granular sugar.

00:07:45: Part of that process is there's a lot waste produced through the manufacture of sugar, and those wastes also became part of that integrated plantation complex because distilleries were built where you could gather these supplies.

00:08:04: For most parts this work was too brutal—the conditions to excruciating disease.

00:08:11: climate so deadly for many people to choose on their own, to move to the Caribbean and undertake this labor.

00:08:20: And so in the seventeenth century into the eighteenth there were a variety of coercive labour regimes whether that was forcing prisoners from Northern Europe or through indentured servitude where they gave up rights to their labour during a period of time And also increasingly racialized slavery of indigenous Americans and increasingly Western Africans who were taken from West Africa against their will, enslaved on Caribbean plantations.

00:08:59: The work tended to be from sun up till sundown.

00:09:03: the immediacy of needing to turn sugar cane into granular sugar meant that sometimes the work went in to the evenings.

00:09:13: And there are really kind of excruciating accounts of the lived experience, and

00:09:27: it's a fascinating history.

00:09:30: going back to this idea.

00:09:33: What we have then is, it's been so sort of highly studied and perfected over the years that basically you might call like a franchise model.

00:09:43: Like McDonalds or Subway or something where... You know that you need a certain amount of land on a certain island And a certain number of enslaved people A certain number Overseers.

00:09:56: Then machinery to process sugar plop it down.

00:10:02: It guarantees you X amount of profits per year, right?

00:10:07: I mean that's how developed it becomes over the course of the centuries as the sugar industry is developing.

00:10:14: yeah

00:10:15: in theory i think that planters and would-be planters from kind of britain or perhaps from the americas who want to set up sugar plantations they hope.

00:10:29: One of the arguments that I make in this book is if we focus on rum, which by its very definition as a waste product.

00:10:35: We have a chance to focus how plantations worked rather than how people hoped they'd worked.

00:10:41: and so what i mean about it?

00:10:43: you might think there's some sense with the labor force that you want to rely on but you're reliant even under systems of duress being willing.

00:10:56: You might think that you need a certain number of plantation operators, overseers.

00:11:27: So, what my research has uncovered is that there's a lot of negotiation and conflict sometimes on the ground as again plantation owners and operators merchants have an idea how commodities are made.

00:11:45: But very idea of rum in first place is acknowledgement.

00:11:49: things don't always go as

00:11:51: planned Fascinating.

00:11:53: Okay, let's move the story from that first stage—the sugar plantation now to say the colonies where you have your first distilleries?

00:12:02: Yeah so my book kind of begins in The Caribbean and tells a story of rum being invented through the collision of different groups of people looking for a new way to satisfy desires thirsts tastes for alcohol with the ingredients they have available.

00:12:22: And so that's happening in the mid-seventeenth century, and places like Barbados and eventually Jamaica.

00:12:28: But by the sixteen sixties—and certainly by the sixteenth eighties people on other parts of the Atlantic world are thinking about how they can integrate kind of a labor and expertise devised into Caribbean and other places.

00:12:43: So by the sixty eighties three million liters per year were being exported from Barbados.

00:12:54: And around the same time, in a letter to John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts it was stated that molasses is vendible and no part of the world but New England and

00:13:05: Virginia.".

00:13:06: The insinuation of the letter said they would send more of that molassus too new into Massachusetts.

00:13:10: What does Vendable mean?

00:13:12: Sailable or there's only market for the molasses?

00:13:19: And so by that early date, there were already some distilleries in place.

00:13:25: In Massachusetts and the number of distillerys end their kind movement from maybe being a side hustle for our family into central business component families.

00:13:37: economic endeavors only intensified.

00:13:41: And so one thing that was happening is that in the Caribbean, some of this early Rome as being made with these slightly soured cane juice or the refuse products were inefficiencies in the system.

00:13:56: In Massachusetts and other North American cities, the distilleries increasingly relied solely on molasses which is the syrup that couldn't be hardened into sugar.

00:14:06: that would kind of drain out of sugar as it was curing So that molasses would be stored up, it'd be barreled and sent to North American cities.

00:14:19: Plantations relied on centralizing different economic endeavors and different stages of a commodity process within sight of each other.

00:14:28: Whereas these North American distilleries instead relied an imported cheap ingredient that could be further processed into something also called rum, although it was often seen as slightly less desirable version than what was produced in the Caribbean.

00:14:44: Okay let's move onto who is drinking it.

00:14:49: So it's produced in these distilleries, and then let's just because we're trying to paint a full picture of everything here.

00:14:56: It's molasses is produced or its byproducts the sugar making process on the Sugar Islands transported into big cities in the colonies for stills in Boston New York.

00:15:10: They are now.

00:15:11: what is next step on our voyage?

00:15:15: So for both rum produced in the Caribbean and produced in North America, one of its kind of greatest attributes was that almost everybody was drinking it.

00:15:27: And so if you were kind of drinking a tavern or private home in Philadelphia or Charleston or Boston or New York You would probably consuming rum maybe plain, maybe watered down with a little bit of citrus or sugar.

00:15:44: Often as a rum punch which was a mixture of sugar and citrus alcohol and water.

00:15:51: if you were engaged in the transatlantic slave trade And-and you are engaging that trade from north British North America You were from the late seventeenth century exchanging In part in rum.

00:16:05: If you worked on the fisheries off of the coasts of North America that was a rum, it's common trade good and consumable among those populations of fishermen.

00:16:19: Native people living in North America or the Northeast were consuming rum—or sometimes choosing not to.

00:16:30: but there are rum trades that integrated many different groups.

00:16:40: Availability of rum is kind of well documented in North America from the last quarter or so, of the seventeenth century throughout the eighteenth century.

00:16:51: This was...in many places and I would argue most place.

00:16:55: it's the most common spirit that would have been consumed

00:16:59: Right!

00:16:59: And i think its important just to stress what you said about the slave trade That indeed it basically used as currency a gallon of rum.

00:17:07: And I think there are documents, historical documents that indicate how much an enslaved person is worth or was sold for.

00:17:15: however many like leaders of rum right?

00:17:18: Yeah and one of the things to keep in mind is that In The Transatlantic Slave Trade i argue in the book That North American Rum Producers and then kind of slave trade merchants Were able to kind of enter parts of the transatlantic slave trade because they were willing To adjust what their rum have tasted like and looked like,to meet The demand of Slave traders on the coast of West Africa who are often Africans themselves.

00:17:52: Rum in-and-of itself was not often capable Of unlocking market transactions in people.

00:18:00: but it was part what is sometimes called sordid cargoes, mixed where rum alongside kind of cloth and other European commodities were bundled.

00:18:15: And then they could be used to purchase people.

00:18:19: I want to focus on maybe some other alcohols now because Obviously, Rome wasn't the only alcohol and not the only prized alcoholic commodity.

00:18:30: So I think we need to maybe just for a minute step away from The British sugar islands in the production of from in the colonies too brandy French Brandi and the French Empire.

00:18:41: so do you just want to take?

00:18:42: A little detour here.

00:18:43: What is that competing?

00:18:45: You know the competition looking like French brand II which was hugely popular hugely available and really direct competitor, maybe even you could say a threat to the French Empire.

00:18:59: Yeah so one thing to keep in mind is that the seventeenth century was very important moment for the history of distilled spirits.

00:19:07: In fact technology spreading copper and other metals had improved.

00:19:12: at point it's possible build larger stills than might have been.

00:19:19: And so it's not that distilled spirits were new in the seventeenth century, but these new technologies and the availability of large quantities of sugar meant they could be produced more efficiently.

00:19:35: That does substantively change what the Distilled Spirits Market looks like If you are a British Imperial official in the Seventeenth Century You might know many individuals had developed a taste for Brandy, made out of often usually probably grapes not grown in any great scale In England or Scotland itself Which meant that the brandy normally needed to be imported across imperial lines and in A kind of mercantilist system And with kind of the political economy and economic beliefs underpinning that system.

00:20:14: The idea was were buying these imported goods in large quantities, you were siphoning wealth to your imperial competitors.

00:20:26: And so there was a real incentive for the British to find kind of a domestic or um Imperial alternative To that brandy.

00:20:39: and Rum emerges at a moment where uh The british are thinking hey we can produce this rum, and then people might consume the rum instead of brandy.

00:20:52: Now it was remained imperfect in that many elites preferred brandy.

00:20:57: once somebody has a taste for something its sometimes hard to substitute a different commodity for it.

00:21:03: That kind of center of decision making about how British would ultimately support rum production.

00:21:12: The flip side is equally interesting.

00:21:15: The French in particular had a very established brandy industry that was important for leading kind of domestic producers.

00:21:25: And so rum, even if it was produced or something like it—even if it is produced on the French Caribbean islands–was seen as threat to domestic commodity production and an important driver of the French economy.

00:21:38: So as early as seventeen thirteen, a French law goes onto the books banning the distillation of sugar-derived spirits in France and also limiting the trade of those distilled spirits that would look like rum.

00:21:55: tastes like rum sometimes called gildive or taffia.

00:21:59: Those could no longer be produced—or they couldn't be traded from the French West Indies to other parts of the world.

00:22:09: And so we see this kind of moment of divergence where, where The British Atlantic World comes to identify with Rome and see it as an economic engine of empire whereas the French see is a threat.

00:22:28: Again in the moment that this waste product called rum is becoming more popular not just in the Caribbean, Not Just In North America but also in Britain.

00:22:37: Britons are also developing a new relationship with The Dutch.

00:22:41: They Are Becoming Enamored With Jennifer.

00:22:46: they create their own version.

00:22:48: The theory is, or the idea that they would take cheap grain-based alcohols.

00:22:54: They'd add botanicals including juniper and market it as gin In a moment where in aftermath of William & Mary sending to the throne there was craze for many things Dutch.

00:23:12: And so in some ways, in Britain itself the competitor for rum might be another affordable spirit.

00:23:18: In the form of gin again.

00:23:20: and The book.

00:23:22: I Think about how someone that gin was actually made from molasses derived spirits or sugary where spirits made from sugar?

00:23:29: And I tie kind of changes to help.

00:23:32: people were thinking about working class consumption Of alcohol as not being just about gen but about being gin and rum.

00:23:40: So i make the argument that the jinn craze, that moment of Hogarth's famous print out-of-control because they're consuming too many distilled spirits.

00:23:51: That coincides with similar conversations around the same time in Jamaica where Port Royal's destruction and late seventeenth century is memorialized as a biblical story or where a hysteria, nothing less than a hysterian surrounding Native American drinking patterns in North America is again a question of elites and the British world coming to terms with people who they expected to extract labor from consuming alcohol in ways that they found destabilizing.

00:24:32: Yeah, and so you just mentioned sort of this moral tinge to the entire history of Rome.

00:24:37: Why don't you talk a little bit about the religious context of Rome at that time?

00:24:41: And I promise then we will get into American colonies in talking about The American Revolution but it's fascinating!

00:24:48: So there are many different religious connotations for Rome In the early or mid-seventeenth century There were questions on whether different alcohol experience produced in the Americas could replace wine, in communion.

00:25:08: Keep in mind that wine or beer—traditional kind of alcohols consumed in Europe were really hard to stop from spoiling as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean.

00:25:18: so there are questions about whether other alcohols —other American or Atlantic alcohols—could fulfill religious purposes.

00:25:27: There are questions about whether good Christians should be drinking rum, and increase in.

00:25:32: cotton-mather is deeply concerned with rums placed in Massachusetts society.

00:25:52: What I find really interesting is that the Mathers realize pretty quickly, they are not going to stop all Americans from drinking rum.

00:26:02: And instead they suggest certain Americans ministers and leaders of communities need be careful about their consumption of rum.

00:26:12: But religious questions like how much rum you should drink in what context continue with religious sects temperance, and also with kind of the evangelical component of the abolitionist movement in the aftermath of the American enduring.

00:26:31: And then in the aftermath of the american revolution where certain religious groups increasingly see slavery as something that they need to adjust their consumer behaviors around um and use kind of religious communities and networks.

00:26:51: non-consumption of sugar and rum in other slave produced products.

00:26:55: Yeah, maybe we'll come back to that because it might be the kind of most interesting for me from a modern perspective here.

00:27:04: looking back you know... We boycott certain products when we think they're morally impure for some reason.

00:27:13: And thinking back then as sort anti slavery sentiment is rising.

00:27:21: If everyone sort of knew that slavery and this product were intimately connected, you could see very easily that you would want to disassociate yourself from essentially a product made with slave labor?

00:27:35: Yes!

00:27:36: And so this is very tied I think where our conversation might head in the little bit because... Yeah

00:27:43: just briefly we'll get here later.

00:27:45: Okay there are two things going on.

00:27:47: one immediate years leading up to the American Revolution, Americans realize that they can affect kind of political decision making through what they choose to consume or not consume.

00:28:01: And so that's kind of a non-consumption movement surrounding things like The Stamp Act and Townsend Acts and T Act.

00:28:10: The other thing that happens is the Declaration of Independence unleashes new conversations about some very big and powerful ideas.

00:28:19: The idea of innate human rights, all men are created equal And that jump starts the abolitionist movement in Britain and what became United States In different ways.

00:28:35: So within a generation political techniques, kind of pioneered or at least used in new ways during the American Revolution are directed toward other political movements including trying to affect the cessation of the slave trade and slavery.

00:28:52: Cool!

00:28:53: And we're going get back to that now.

00:28:55: were gonna start our journey here the Molasses Act of seventeen thirty-three.

00:29:04: We know how important now molasses is to the rum industry, so why don't you just talk about this first molasses act please?

00:29:13: So again in the early eighteenth century the French start to limit the uses of molasses within their own empire and something that happens pretty quickly is that merchants, both American merchants but also French merchants look for another outlet for those sugary byproducts.

00:29:32: And so by seventeen twenty-three there are complaints of their sixteen distilleries in New York and they're wholly supplied from Martinique.

00:29:41: For the British again this mercantilist system has seen as a threat to some products with its own plantations.

00:29:49: So variety different ideas circulate about whether the trade of molasses to North America should be entirely stopped, and ultimately what's decided is that it's going to be heavily regulated through taxes.

00:30:05: And again there are different reasons why kind of taxes were enacted at different points in the eighteenth century.

00:30:11: One is About regulating vice-and so rum becomes a source of those sorts of taxes.

00:30:18: one is about the regulation of commerce which American colonists normally agree that the British have the right to tax for their purpose, and we'll get into it a little bit later.

00:30:27: But one is about kind of the generation of revenue.

00:30:31: So The Molasses Act Is the source of extended Negotiation And ultimately the duty placed on molasses in That seventeen thirty three act.

00:30:42: He's quite high and It is seen by many Distillers or merchants In North America as prohibitively High.

00:30:50: In the immediate aftermath of The Molasses Act, the raw industry in a place like Massachusetts declines.

00:30:58: I think maybe forty percent of distilleries seem to close.

00:31:02: That decline lasts for couple years but pretty quickly merchants and distillers start finding ways around the molasses act.

00:31:13: And so there are a variety of different techniques used to smuggle, sometimes in the Caribbean where molasses might be moved to antropos like St Eustatius were American merchants could trade.

00:31:26: Sometimes the molasses would be taken from small French islands and kind of imported into British Islands then repackaged as British molasses.

00:31:39: Sometimes it would be snuck into small ports, or even kind of small waterways in the North American colonies.

00:31:48: There was also a lot

00:31:49: of

00:31:50: paying bribes to customs officials and so The cost of smuggling added some costs to the importation of molasses but It was cheaper than these prohibitive duties.

00:32:01: And So as the eighteenth century progressed Even with kind of a law on the books that in theory would really limit, perhaps cripple North American run production.

00:32:15: We see a steady increase in the number of distilleries and just about every north american

00:32:21: colony.

00:32:22: And I am happy.

00:32:22: now you mentioned St Eustaceus because we can talk about pirates Because of course st eustaceous is a Dutch colony That's pretty much open to whatever going on.

00:32:34: They're happy to trade with, as the Dutch often were.

00:32:37: With whoever wants to trade no matter what laws are violated.

00:32:41: and St Eustasis is known as quite the pirate's den isn't it?

00:32:46: Yeah I would argue kind of much of the Caribbean is the center of piracy in certain moments smuggling and under-regulated trade in other moments.

00:32:58: And there are a lot of accusations where some people might think of particular behavior as piracy, then others just think it is the way things were going on or happening at that time.

00:33:14: Is this what we get our association with Raman Piracy?

00:33:19: I'm just curious.

00:33:20: This is a totally off-fire historical narrative now, but where do you think the first associations come from?

00:33:26: Is it from St Eustatius or had it existed already?

00:33:32: so i actually Think that some of the ways in which we uniquely connect pirates and rum Happens.

00:33:40: after all this what I will say is is I one hundred percent agree that pirates who, as Marcus Retticker suggests were motivated by an attitude of a short life but good one drank all sorts alcohol in incredible quantities.

00:34:00: But guess what?

00:34:01: So did almost everybody else and so the book includes stories of pirates or privateers in Port Royal in the sixteen eighties drinking large amounts buying prodigious qualities of rum, but also things like wine and harassing people in the streets as they kind of just drank this or even can just sprayed alcohol on passers-by.

00:34:27: But keep in mind that when—and I would imagine we might talk about it a few minutes–but That's five or six modern-day servings of alcohol that is being given to sailors daily, sometimes at one time.

00:34:45: And so there are a lot people who drink a lot of rum and they're also drinking other things when they have the money for different things.

00:34:52: The unique connection between piracy and rum that suggests pirates did something else.

00:34:59: I think it was a remnant

00:35:02: of

00:35:02: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island where, in the midst of a temperance movement in Britain Robert Louis Stevenson writes a book for children that is meant to impart certain lessons.

00:35:18: If you read this book and I do every year in my teaching first of all The Doctor, Dr.

00:35:24: Levsay is the name of the most famous temperance advocate in nineteenth century Britain.

00:35:32: but furthermore Most of the time when somebody is consuming rum, it's a pirate.

00:35:39: It's not that Jim and his cohort don't drink but they're drinking brandy or their drinking wine.

00:35:49: Treasure Island which then inspires a lot different popular culture including Pirates Of The Caribbean continues to establishes this trend.

00:36:02: Pirates as uniquely consuming huge amounts of rum.

00:36:07: And so I wrote about this a little bit in a recent article called where's the pirate for commonplace?

00:36:13: It's not to say that pirates aren't important from my story, but they become kind more attached to Rum later

00:36:20: on.

00:36:20: All right.

00:36:21: Let's move on with our story and the colonies.

00:36:24: So we have the molasses active.

00:36:26: Seventeen, thirty-three.

00:36:29: And now we're going to jump ahead to the Sugar Act of seventeen sixty three and again in these intervening periods what we have is a bunch of stuff...and I just want to quickly go through this.

00:36:40: We had this new culture avoiding the molasses tax.

00:36:44: so you have all these people clandestinely trying to avoid the tax.

00:36:49: i think it's fair to say that The Molasses Tax wasn't So successful because People Just ended up Avoiding It various ways, so it didn't quite raise the revenue that...that The British Empire wanted.

00:37:01: And that takes us to the Sugar Act of seventeen sixty-three which again happens at the end of the Seven Years' War—the End of the French and Indian war—and one of the purposes of this act is to make imperial coffers full by taxing the colonists.

00:37:21: And I'll just note from the Sugar Act of seventeen sixty-three, it says that uh... The point of the act is to quote more effectually prevent the clandestine conveyance of goods too and from the said colonies in plantations.

00:37:38: Namely the sugar colonies in America.

00:37:41: So um we're getting closer to the Declaration of Independence but now were at the Sugar Acts of seventeen seventy three.

00:37:48: What should be remember about this?

00:37:50: in connection

00:37:50: to rum.

00:37:53: I think you did a really good job of tying the Sugar Act to The Seven Years War, A couple things i would point out is that the seven years war was incredibly expensive.

00:38:06: North Americans felt they had carried alot of water as it was fought in north america.

00:38:15: They were dissatisfied and might not reap some rewards.

00:38:20: being able to expand, uh being able in some people's eyes to kind of eradicate or at least challenge Catholicism.

00:38:27: In North America they were generally dissatisfied with what had happened but the British were dissatisfied by what they saw as north americans continuing to trade with the enemy.

00:38:39: sometimes during The Seven Years War They had seen this consumer society in North America emerged that clearly had money to buy a lot of things, but they were not paying kind of their share of the taxes.

00:38:56: or in the minds of the British.

00:38:58: So keep in mind that generally the tax burden for somebody living in England would have been twenty times what the annual tax burden was for someone who lived in Massachusetts which is most taxed colony of the thirteen colonies that we think of declaring independence.

00:39:17: You go a little bit north to New Hampshire, new Hampshire colonists were paying one hundredth Of the taxes of The average Englishman and so there's this idea That there needs to be some sort of imperial reform To make the colonies Pay for more than they were paying For.

00:39:39: So both the colonies and The British had different ideas of how to raise revenue through taxes.

00:39:48: They used in the Molasses Act and other similar legislation, they had seen taxes as a means to regulate trade.

00:39:59: In the aftermath of the gin craze in seventeen thirty six uh...they experimented with taxes to control vice.

00:40:07: I would add that one thing came out of both these taxes was they didn't really challenge the demand for rub.

00:40:17: So, they kind of defied what you might expect from a rational economic standpoint.

00:40:22: people just seemed willing to pay those taxes.

00:40:25: and so a variety... Both the British sometimes put as many as twelve or fourteen different duties on distilled spirits.

00:40:34: but American colonies from North Carolina up to Massachusetts at different moments, New York.

00:40:40: At different moments taxed rum as a means to raise revenue.

00:40:46: but the Sugar Act of seventeen sixty-four which both was meant to regulate trade with some people also saw it as a mean to raise Revenue became controversial.

00:40:57: and It Was an interesting Tax because actually lowered the duties From The seventeen thirties.

00:41:04: but it increased the enforcement mechanisms.

00:41:07: Now all of a sudden there would be British naval vessels off of the coasts to cut down on smuggling, and that idea was you might charge less—but if you increase your enforcement you may make more money!

00:41:23: The hope I think among some kind of British officials is they were charging so little Then to smuggle.

00:41:35: but that didn't quite happen.

00:41:36: That way Just a quick question before you move on.

00:41:39: I've seen it noted as the sugar act being in seventeen sixty-three or Seventeen sixty four and then some minor point.

00:41:46: But i'm kind of interested why these two dates appear?

00:41:49: If I remember correctly, I think It becomes kind of operational on seventeen.

00:41:52: okay so looks like past in the sixty three And then Like with The Canada Act at it actually

00:41:58: comes

00:41:58: into force next year.

00:42:02: Okay, so back to our story.

00:42:05: So we are at the Sugar Act of seventeen sixty-four and the reasons for it right?

00:42:12: And then the hope of The British Empire that people will start paying this tax not treating with St Eustaceus anymore...and I might note in Saint Eustacius they were very angry about these sugar taxes as well.

00:42:26: They didn't like the Royal Navy in their business.

00:42:32: Yeah, and I would say like seemingly everybody's upset with the sugar act.

00:42:39: People who ultimately decided to side with The Loyalist Cause a decade later are deeply troubled by-by the Sugar Act And what it means to kind of the North American business climate in the seventeen sixties.

00:42:56: Yeah, so there's a lot of dissatisfaction.

00:42:59: There is protesting that kind of leads into as well the Stamp Act.

00:43:05: This my students call this like if they're identifying this They just called oh one of the acts right?

00:43:12: One of these seventeen sixties pieces of legislation That becomes controversial within a couple years.

00:43:18: they actually cut The tax rate again but is becoming the opening salvo in an ongoing attempt to make kind of, The North American Economy pay for itself.

00:43:32: In new ways.

00:43:34: one other things that I would note in the seventeen sixties Is That i don't see?

00:43:40: the sugar act as the end Of smuggling.

00:43:45: I See Other Forms of Smuggling a variety of different things, but there are also several pretty notable instances.

00:43:54: Of North American sailors or kind of towns people in ports directly confronting customs officials as they seek to collect this revenue.

00:44:06: and so There are towns In New England especially who will tell you that something happened in their town was the first kind of violence of The American Revolution, often in the seventeen sixties.

00:44:20: And a lot of times that has to do with the enforcement of the sugar act In a variety of ways where customs officials sometimes feel under attack Feel they're held hostage in certain circumstances That are forcibly stopped from collecting the revenues They've been empowered.

00:44:40: Okay, let's move our story along because we are getting closely to the battles of Lexington and Concord.

00:44:47: And The Declaration Of Independence then in seventeen seventy six.

00:44:52: so We all know those of you who've been listening To this series.

00:44:55: You Know what's going on In This Period.

00:44:58: There'S a slow Move Towards Greater Anger Against King George and the Parliament in London.

00:45:05: more and More Acts Are Past that make calmness more and more unhappy.

00:45:10: And eventually we now get to the Declaration of Independence where we see those two phrases, grievance number sixteen he has cut off our trade with all parts of the world.

00:45:23: in grievance seventeen He has imposed taxes on us without our

00:45:28: consent.".

00:45:30: All this goes back to your very specific history.

00:45:33: So, why don't you talk about those two grievances and why these two specifically are in the declaration?

00:45:40: And what they have to do with rum.

00:45:44: I think again that molasses trade as well which is obviously closely intertwined our integral to North American economy by time of The American Revolution It's a hard number to count, but by seventeen seventy John McCusker suggests that there were one hundred forty rum distilleries in North America as far south as Georgia up to New Hampshire.

00:46:08: But actually even beyond and colonies that are modern day Canada.

00:46:14: And There is a segment of people that kind describe the American Revolution In terms where they want free trade and I think that there are some limits to kind of what they imagine with free trade, but different imperial decisions that make it harder for North American merchants to accumulate the goods that are central to their industries.

00:46:37: Are certainly one topic of considerable concern?

00:46:42: And so too our taxes again not just any tax rate.

00:46:46: There's a longer history of taxing rum and even molasses But taxes.

00:46:52: American colonists do not have an ability to kind of debate or to enact on themselves, and instead they're imposed on them from a parliament that they have no representation in.

00:47:06: And so just because RUM is such a central part of the American economy at this moment I would imagine when people usually heard The Declaration Of Independence read it too.

00:47:17: but maybe if they did then about the rum industry and the rum that many of them consumed on a regular basis.

00:47:29: Okay, so as we've been talking about this Jordan—and I was thinking about these two grievances, Grievance XVI about trade and Grievence XVII about taxing us without our consent–I oftentimes always think of this deleted passage from The Declaration Of Independence About Slavery which we talked about a number times in this podcast series.

00:47:54: We've been talking about rum and rum is so deeply connected to slavery.

00:47:58: And everyone knew it, right?

00:48:01: So as we're thinking of the Declaration Of Independence Is there a way of connecting Rum To all this and slavery?

00:48:08: I mean for me It seems like that deleted passage means a little bit more to me now, because by not putting that in there it's also kind of saying well we're not going talk about slavery and the declaration.

00:48:20: And so we don't have really think too much about our precious rum that we all like drinking.

00:48:24: So I'll just get rid of this...and sort-of put it underneath the bed and ignore it.

00:48:31: Yeah when i'm teaching The Declaration Of Independence To My Students We read That Rough Draft!

00:48:37: And the students congregate TO THAT missing clause talk about.

00:48:43: I ask, why do you think that is taken out?

00:48:46: And the point they make and I tend to agree with it was a place where perhaps the framers of the Declaration of Independence were in front.

00:48:56: some people who were relying on this document especially some colonies wanted to sign this document.

00:49:06: The story of Ram in the eighteenth century the expansiveness of slavery vis-à-vis, The American Colonies.

00:49:19: And so it might have been that certain Southern colonies wanted to avoid a mention of slavery in the Declaration Of Independence.

00:49:29: but as the Declaration of Independence was being debated all thirteen of those colonies still had slavery on the books.

00:49:38: and I make the argument the distilleries of New England and most of these North American districts, not all them but some were in Rhode Island or Massachusetts.

00:49:50: Those distillerys relied more than many industries on enslaved people to conduct work.

00:49:57: so ROM is tied up slavery in places that we don't often associate with slavery and North America at the eve of The American Revolution.

00:50:06: It's also tied up with America's continuing involvement In the transatlantic slave trade, which I'll give a little bit of spoiler actually only increases in the aftermath Of the american revolution.

00:50:18: That's fascinating.

00:50:20: i Assumed perhaps incorrectly that the only enslaved people in the north or the vast majority were as it were house help Right?

00:50:29: But you're saying actually that in the distilleries there were enslaved people and New England.

00:50:36: Yes, many of the distillaries relied on usually small numbers of enslaved people working in those distillerys... Well

00:50:44: it's okay then!

00:50:45: No no but I point out because i think the experience of slavery is different or certainly was different on a kind of Caribbean plantation where the conditions may have been or often were especially excruciating, more deadly shorter lifespans things like that.

00:51:08: But also there were enslaved communities whereas experience of slavery in northern cities where these deciders located was different right?

00:51:17: You often had less distance from your enslaver and day-to-day work environment you might not have kind.

00:51:25: So it's not, I don't think...I'm not trying to make comparisons of slavery.

00:51:34: No!

00:51:34: It is interesting and i think that we do remember that slavery existed on this huge spectrum the absolute total inhuman brutality of the sugar islands to potentially less horrible physical brutal nature.

00:51:56: Yeah, and again like the distilleries still right.

00:51:59: Like I think that it's still...like the point that sometimes enslaved people made in The Era of American Revolution was if they were making drawn comparisons between their experiences They would point out but i'm still enslaved.

00:52:12: I still didn't control my labor or body.

00:52:17: That was the case if you were a man by the name of Pompey working in a seventeen sixties Philadelphia distillery owned by the Chevaliers, for

00:52:26: instance.".

00:52:27: Yeah well i'm thinking specifically about Christmas addicts at that moment...I wonder what jobs he is doing outside Boston when he escaped slavery?

00:52:38: He became a sailor after his escape, or I guess he was so young when he escaped.

00:52:45: I wonder what sort of being trained to do would be fully working?

00:52:51: But anyway that's another history!

00:52:53: Let

00:52:53: us actually skip through the ore of independence now and look at

00:53:02: RUM

00:53:03: and the state of abolition, and the State of Slavery.

00:53:07: And the brand new United States after The War Of

00:53:10: Independence.".

00:53:14: So...the first thing I would say is that anti-slavery ideas are as old as slavery itself.

00:53:22: Enslaved people did not want to be enslaved!

00:53:25: ...and were the First Abolitionists absolutely must be a part of our stories, or histories of abolition.

00:53:34: That being said the really big and powerful ideas embodied in The Declaration Of Independence—the idea of innate human rights… the idea that all men are created equal opened up new ground on the anti-slavery debate... And here I think Christopher Leslie Brown's book Moral Capital remains kind.

00:53:56: In the era of The Declaration Of Independence and in the earliest years, of kind of United States independent history abolitionists had new power tied to these human rights that they enacted to try to force the end of the slave trade.

00:54:17: And ultimately slavery.

00:54:19: I mean These were very much tied up in religious communities at times an evangelical Christian community as well Quakers becoming more and more outspoken in their opposition to slavery.

00:54:31: And there are other things going on at the same time where like, the ideals of The American Revolution people have kind of noted that these Enlightenment ideals play out in places other than United States.

00:54:42: um...and so they're I think like Laurent Dubois' work on the Haitian revolution makes a big point how some of these Enlightened Men Ideals formerly enslaved people and, uh... People of African descent in San Domingue declare independence through a brutal revolution In the seventeen eighties and seventeen nineties.

00:55:07: And I'm reminded Of quotation from an unnamed prisoner Pulled out by CLR James where they say in the seventeen nineties quote We have right to burn what we cultivate because A man has a Right To dispose his labor.

00:55:23: And so again, sometimes enslaved or formerly-enslaved people are making these connections between what's being produced by slave labor and an abolitionist movement.

00:55:32: But abolitionists in places like Britain—in places like the United States especially in northern US but different parts of the

00:55:40: U.S.,

00:55:40: also make this point kind of in aftermath of nonconsumption to lead up to American Revolution which attacks the commodities kind of reliant on trade elsewhere in the British Empire, they are repurposing some of those dynamics.

00:55:59: In an abolitionist movement.

00:56:05: and so as The Haitian Revolution is raging late-seventeen eighties early-seventy nineties There's also a concerted effort and widespread campaign to get everyday British people, the same texts are being republished in United States.

00:56:23: To challenge slavery through their consumer choices.

00:56:27: A lot of times you can find these sugar dishes that have abolitionist phrases on them.

00:56:34: there is this amazing punch bowl four rum punch that's held at the Museum of The American Revolution in Philadelphia, where on one side there are likenesses of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

00:56:47: And then on the other side There is a an anti-slavery kind of phrase or stanza poem connecting I think the ideals of american independence further than many leading americans were willing to go.

00:57:06: And so if you're trying to make sense of this as an American in the in the seventies and seventeen nineties, You're making trying to makes sense off.

00:57:14: Of The abolitionist movement are also trying to Make sense of the fact that you just fought a war To Kind of become independent from Britain and its restrictions on trade which gets back to That kind of passage of the american revolution?

00:57:30: Now the hard part is upon you.

00:57:32: now you're Trying to kind of operationalize them In one of the kind, I think most interesting twists.

00:57:40: at this moment people and Americans in particular are trying to make sense how they might change their relationship with slavery but especially slavery as it's practiced.

00:57:53: And something like maple sugar holds a lot of promise.

00:57:59: So the idea is that there are these vast forests in kind of western parts of existing states.

00:58:09: Oftentimes, the land is is inactively being expropriated from native people.

00:58:14: you've got all these trees and what if you harvest?

00:58:18: The maple syrup from those trees And turn it into sugar?

00:58:22: Well, the problem is you still have to have a replacement for rum And so a lot of energy is expended.

00:58:31: Thomas Jefferson's writing letters about this, George Washington tasting these prototypes to make basically turn the sugar bushes of America as they're sometimes called into free labor sources and not just free labor but independent sources of these commodities that Americans have determined And so they try.

00:58:58: I think that as with many kind of speculative ventures, people had great ideas of what was possible.

00:59:07: They probably overestimated the potential of maple sugar and maple sugar rum, but the idea of maple-sugar rum explains movement into Western New York places like Cooperstown, New York, Northwestern Pennsylvania... And actually if you go in to the nineteenth century it reappears as American colonizing projects moved to Ohio.

00:59:34: Yeah, for me the most interesting part of this story is that deep connection between some ethical sense that slavery as bad and then to a personal practice or person decision.

00:59:46: To consume certain type product And taking it in saying well no I'm not gonna do anymore because that product doesn't speak too my sort of central values, and I think that's such a fascinating part of the story.

01:00:01: And it is not apart from this story about abolition until today.

01:00:06: so thank you very much Jordan!

01:00:09: We've come to end our discussion and i ask all of my guests just give me their take-aways.

01:00:16: they're big reflections on thinking about anniversary of United States of America founding two hundred fifty years in future.

01:00:25: So what do you think when you look back at that declaration of independence?

01:00:32: I'm struck by these huge ideas and the timeless ideas, maybe most eloquently described in The Declaration Of Independence.

01:00:42: We hold these truths to be self-evident then all men are created equal on it.

01:00:46: they have certain inalienable rights.

01:00:57: But people who engaged in a thinking of what was possible, I think that they spoke aspirationally about how society could progress and how society can deliver these ideas to more and more people.

01:01:16: And it took time right?

01:01:23: never an idea that it was perfect, or they had arrived.

01:01:27: But I think about the Declaration of Independence as unleashing ideas that

01:01:32: have

01:01:33: tremendous effects on human history and can even more tremendous effect in future.

01:01:41: And we'll have a glass of rum to thank you Jordan Smith!

01:01:45: Thank you very much for having

01:01:46: me.

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