SUGAR ACT

(1764), in U.S. colonial history, British legislation aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies and at providing increased revenues to fund enlarged British Empire responsibilities following the French and Indian War. Actually a reinvigoration of the largely ineffective Molasses Act of 1733, the Sugar Act provided for strong customs enforcement of the duties on refined sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from non-British Caribbean sources. The act thus granted a virtual monopoly of the American market to British West Indies sugar planters. Early colonial protests at these duties were ended when the tax was lowered two years later. The protected price of British sugar actually benefited New England distillers, though they did not appreciate it. More objectionable to the colonists were the stricter bonding regulations for shipmasters, whose cargoes were subject to seizure and confiscation by British customs commissioners and who were placed under the authority of the Vice-Admiralty Court in distant Nova Scotia if they violated the trade rules or failed to pay duties. Owing to this act, the earlier clandestine trade in foreign sugar, and thus much colonial maritime commerce, were severely hampered. Additional reading R. MacRae, R.K. Robinson, and M.J. Sadler (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Food Science, Food Technology, and Nutrition, 8 vol. (1993); and Y.H. Hui (ed.), Encyclopedia of Food Science and Technology, 4 vol. (1992), are general works that cover all aspects of the science of food. P. Fellows, Food Processing Technology: Principles and Practices (1988), is an introductory text. R. Paul SinghJames C.P. Chen and Chung-chi Chou, Chen-Chou Cane Sugar Handbook: A Manual for Cane Sugar Manufacturers and Their Chemists, 12th ed. (1993), contains detailed descriptions of raw and refined cane-sugar processes. R.A. McGinnis (ed.), Beet-Sugar Technology, 3rd ed. (1982), provides detailed and extensive descriptions of sugar beet production and beet sugar manufacture. Margaret A. Clarke and Mary An Godshall (eds.), Chemistry and Processing of Sugarbeet and Sugarcane (1988), discusses recent and predicted developments in cane and beet sugar manufacture as well as the by-products of sugarcane and sugar beets. Neil L. Pennington and Charles W. Baker (eds.), Sugar: A User's Guide to Sucrose (1990), details sugarcane and sugar beet properties and behaviour in food processing. Margaret A. Clarke