Now...About Those Taxes !

Here's a little bit of history about the revolution times that you may not know.

While most of what we know about early taxation was correct, there were certain things left out of most history books. I reckon it was because of the reference to that ol' "Demon Rum!"

American Rum And The Revolution

Schools teach us that the colonists living in America rebelled because of unfair taxation, which is a pretty accurate statement. They also teach that a tax on tea fired the colonists up, culminating in 1773′s Boston Tea Party. In reality, it didn’t all start there. First came a tax on molasses—molasses used for making rum.

Rum was a hugely popular drink in the American colonies, with hundreds of distilleries all manufacturing their syrupy version of the Caribbean drink. As North America’s climate was ill-suited for growing sugar, most of it was imported, to the tune of about six million gallons of molasses in 1770.

Molasses and sugar came from British- and French-ruled areas. To secure trade for themselves, the British used the Molasses Act of 1733 to slap a heavy tax on molasses that didn’t come from their own colonies. A revised act in 1764 imposed the tax on both sugar and molasses, allowing for the seizure of any cargo imported in violation of the law.

Suddenly, tax was having a very real impact on the success of a major colonial business, leading to the beginning of the rebellion against the idea of taxation without representation.

No matter how you look at it, the colonies were tired of being charged all those high taxes, especially when it came to sugar, tea, and molasses. Seems like the makings for some wild and fun parties were being taxed, and businesses started to hurt. Sounds like a good reason to revolt to me, ya know?

Coffee out on the patio this morning. Another hot and dry day here.