The introduction of sugarcane and slavery into the West Indies gave rise to the plantation system, which entailed the transport of more than 11 million Africans as slaves to the Americas and established the foundation for the Atlantic economy. Sugar (known as a cash crop because of its enormous initial profits) and its by-product rum (distilled from molasses) quickly became incredibly important commodities. As the productive capabilities of the sugar plantations increased, the price of sugar, molasses, and rum decreased. Inexpensive rum thus became the drink of choice in the Americas, especially among the lower classes, who mixed rum and water to produce grog. The demand for rum created a transatlantic trade in the commodity that centered not only on the West Indies, where the best quality rum came from, but also on New England. Merchants in Pennsylvania and especially New England established a lucrative rum trade with the West Indies, thereby earning sufficient credit to purchase consumer goods from England. Merchants throughout the Atlantic found rum to be a durable, desirable, and easily transportable commodity that served middlemen well.
The rum trade is best known as part of the “triangle trade”: New Englanders purchased molasses in the West Indies, distilled it into rum in New England, carried it to West Africa to trade for slaves, then sold Africans in the West Indies and bought more molasses. The rum trade illustrates the ability of colonists to evade the Navigation Acts by which Britain hoped to create a tightly controlled mercantile system. North Americans became capable smugglers, trading illegally with the French, Dutch, and Spanish. They thereby circumvented the Molasses Act of 1733 and increased both their consumption and production of rum. By the late 1760s more than 6 million gallons of molasses was imported annually into British North America, while approximately 5 million gallons of rum was produced yearly in 140 distilleries operating mainly in New England.
See also trade and shipping.
Further reading: John J. McCusker, Rum and the American Revolution: The Rum Trade and the Balance of Payments of the Thirteen Continental Colonies (New York: Garland, 1989).
—Ty M. Reese
World History
