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.
They wanted to tax people without their approval to raise income to pay for the troops stationed in the colonies after the French-Indian War. The Sugar Act was the first in the series of British Colonial taxation acts that provided fuel for revolutionary mood in American colonies. The tax was masterfully implemented to cause little grief to the general public by including the duty in the cost of goods.