ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Sugar Act,

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Britain's sweet, sweet revenge.

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Check out this excerpt.

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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All right, and the question:

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The Sugar Act reflects what shift in relations between

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Great Britain and its colonies?

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And here are your potential answers.

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[ chewing ]

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What exactly was the Sugar Act?

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Well, if you take out all that legal mumbo jumbo,

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we see that "there shall be... paid... upon every gallon of

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molasses... the sum of three pence."

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That just means the British wanted the colonists to pay a tax

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on all the sugar they imported from other British colonies.

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But what was it that made the British

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put this new tax in place in the first place?

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Did they impose the Sugar Act as a sign of A -

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the strengthening of bonds between the colonists and the British?

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Well, think about it.

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How would you feel if all of a sudden you were told

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you had to pay for something you used to get for free?

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That'd be like your parents saying you need to pay

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them the privilege of eating a family meal.

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So that tax definitely not strengthening any bonds.

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In fact, kind of the opposite.

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Did the Sugar Act have to do with B -

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the burgeoning alliance between British colonies

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against their home country?

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Well, there were definitely rumblings within the North American colonies

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about how much they disliked the British.

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But this question is asking about all the British colonies,

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including the ones all the way in the West Indies.

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It's still a little early for the tweet heard around the world.

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Did this tax reflect D -

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the growing economic dependence of the colonies on Great Britain?

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Well, actually, the colonies were starting to become

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more economically independent from Great Britain,

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and this whole separation anxiety

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on the part of the Brits is what caused such a frenzy in the first place.

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So it ain't D, either.

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That means the Sugar Act reflected C -

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the diverging goals of Great Britain and their North American colonies.

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Well, during this period the New England colonies were sort of like teenagers:

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rebellious, feeling pretty smart, but no longer

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wanting to listen to their stuffy, old British parents.

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The decision to put a tax on sugar was only the beginning, though.

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12 years later, the colonies would be waging

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full-out war against their former masters.

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So C is the right answer.

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They probably should've put a little more thought

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into that whole spoonful of sugar approach.

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[ ding ] [ birds chirp ]

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