Equal Protection and Race........................................................................................................ 1839. Overview..............................................................................................................................
Sugar cane plantations in the colonies of the West Indies. The older Sugar and Molasses tax charged the customer a duty of 6 pence per gallon of molasses. The bribe to customs officials per gallon of smuggled molasses was 1.5p. The new Sugar Act lowered the duty to 3p per gallon.
With this act, the colonists' anger reached the boiling point. The frustration was now to take the form of overt rebellion. The previous Molasses Act, Navigation Acts, and Sugar Act suddenly were seen as an ominous prelude to this final blow, the enslavement of British subjects by their own British government.