Food riots

Food riots had a long tradition in Anglo-American culture in the 18th century. In England common folk often rioted when the price of bread or grain became too high because bakers or merchants sent their supplies of food to distant markets to make greater profits. In these popular disturbances the crowd would often seize the contested bread and either distribute it or actually sell it at the “just price”—the normal price accepted by the community. This type of riot occurred only rarely in British North America. Three bread riots broke out in Boston, and a handful of other mob actions regulating market conditions occurred in a few other colonial cities. However, during the Revolutionary War (1775-83) at least 30 food or market riots were triggered by profiteering, an inflationary currency, high demand for foodstuffs, and wartime shortages. Similar to many riots in England and Europe, the revolutionary bread riots included a high level of participation of women in the crowd, since women were most directly involved in local produce markets. These crowds would behave in a manner similar to those engaged in English bread riots, but they often inserted some political content by charging the engrossers of foodstuffs with being Tories (Loyalists) and would sometimes humiliate violators and drive them out of the community. These crowds also were concerned with a variety of market items besides bread, including tea, coffee, sugar, meat, and salt. Most of the riots—at least the ones for which historians have found evidence—occurred north of Maryland and took place in cities and smaller towns. After the Revolutionary War there is no record of food riots until the 1830s.

Further reading: Paul A. Gilje, Rioting in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); Barbara Clark Smith, “Food Rioters and the American Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 51 (1994): 3-39.