American Rum 21: A Merchantilist's Nightmare
In the previous article we have seen that before the Revolution, the export of American rum, was minimal. The real importance of rum for the economy and the society of the Continental Colonies was indeed great but it lay in different directions, economically, socially and politically.
In that period the Mercantilist doctrine dominated the minds and the political decisions of the Governments and of the ruling classes at large all over Europe. According to this doctrine, every Country had to be economically self-sufficient and limit imports as much as possible. In the British Empire the colonies had to provide commodities such as tropical products which were impossible to produce at home and which Britain did not want to buy from foreign powers. Moreover, there also had to be a market for the goods manufactured in the Motherland. In short, the colonies were supposed to be a simple peripheral appendix of the national economy. But the Continental Colonies, and first of all New England, soon developed in a very different way, outside the Mercantilist schemes.
Green Dragon Tavern on Union Street
Let’s begin with sugar: in the Continental Colonies, on the eve of the American Revolution, sugar refining itself had become an important industry. Moreover, the manufacturers of barrels for molasses and rum, the thriving shipbuilding industry that produced the ships on which to transport them, the port and financial services for the growing American merchant fleet and the production of many other manufactured products, like chandlers, which had their markets mainly in the West Indies, employed a lot of local labor and capital, forming a rich, complex economic structure separate from that of the Motherland.
In particular, the local distillation of rum was an enterprise of major significance, with many distilleries first in Boston and then also elsewhere in the Colonies. Soon rum became a mass-market product, one of the first produced by American industry.
In short, on the eve of the Revolution, most of the rum consumed in the Continental Colonies was produced by local distilleries, with local capital and local labor, and enriched local distillers, merchants and sellers: a British Mercantilist’s nightmare. And the export of American Rum, even though minimal in itself, was an important part of the far larger export of the Continental Colonies all over the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and other parts of the world, including Russia.
Bunch of Grapes Tavern
Let’s finish with a long quote from McCusker’s great work:
“Rather than maintaining an independent existence, the colonists’ export of rum complemented a general export trade in a range of goods to a variety of customers. Thus a consistent pattern of Parliamentary legislation circumscribing the markets for rum exported from the Continental Colonies threatened not only a small trade in one commodity but hampered the colonist’s export trade in general. The West Indian interest in the House of Commons showed its ability to appeal to the latent mercantilism of that body nowhere better than in the campaign to curtail colonial competition for the markets for rum during the 15 years prior to the American Revolution. The Quebec Revenue Act of 1774 closed to New England and New York one of their best outlets for rum. This action epitomized the complaint of John Hancock when he protested ‘acts of pretended legislation … cutting off our trade with all parts of the world’ two years later in the Declaration of Independence. Rum was merely one battleground of a much larger war. … Rum and molasses occupied a strategic position in the vital trade of the Continental Colonies with the West Indies, being readily available and readily acceptable returns for colonial goods shipped there. The distilling of rum in the Continental Colonies created a manufacturing industry second only to the shipping complex as an employer of local capital, managerial talent, and labor.… The importation and internal sale of rum and molasses thus fulfilled a series of significant functions in the economy of the Continental Colonies, significant enough to be well worth defending by the peaceful protests and petitions of the mid-1760’s against pernicious precepts of Parliament. If these protests and petitions added fuel to a simmering fire of colonial discontent which later blazed into open rebellion, maybe we can talk about rum and the American Revolution.”
-Article written by Mr. Marco Pierini-
My name is Marco Pierini, I was born in 1954 in a little town in Tuscany (Italy) where a still live. I got a degree in Philosophy in Florence and I studied Political Science in Madrid, but my real passion has always been History. And through History I have always tried to know the world, and men. Life brought me to work in tour ism, event organization and vocational training. Then I discovered rum. With Francesco Rufini, I founded La Casa del Rum (The House of Rum),that runs a beach bar and selects and distributes Premium Rums in Italy, www.lacasadelrum.it.
And finally I have returned back to my initial passion: History. But now it is the History of Rum. Because Rum is not only a great distillate, it’s a world. Produced in scores of countries, by thousands of companies, with an extraordinary variety of aromas and flavors; it has a terrible and fascinating history, made of slaves and pirates, imperial fleets and revolutions.
All this I try to cover in this column, in my FB profile, www.facebook/marco.pierini.3 and in my articles on the Italian webpage www.bartender.it