Background

• Great Britain outlawed slavery in its colonies in 1834. In order to protect the economies of its colonies during the transition to emancipation, Great Britain instituted protective tariffs or taxes on goods, such as sugar, that were imported from foreign nations. The price of sugar from the British West Indies increased after the end of slavery, and Britons chafed at the protective tariff that raised the price of sugar imported from places like Cuba (a Spanish colony). Without the tariff, sugar from Cuba would have been cheaper than sugar from the British West Indies.
  
  

Requirements of the Sugar Duties Act

• The Sugar Duties Act of 1846 ended the protective tariffs by making the duties on both British colonial and foreign sugar the same. The bill made the repeal a gradual process, completing the removal of the protecting tariffs in 1851 (later extended to 1854).
  
  

Debate over the Sugar Duties Act

• The Sugar Duties Act was at the center of a debate over free trade and the morality of importing sugar that had been grown by slaves. Those in support of ending the protective tariffs argued that free trade was vital to the British economy. Moreover, advocates contended, free labor was fundamentally superior to slavery, and sugar grown by free labor would eventually be cheaper than sugar produced on slave plantations. The opposition disagreed that free labor would necessarily win out in the end and felt that it was immoral to support countries that allowed slavery by buying their products.
  
  

Effects

• The impact of the Sugar Duties Act was devastating on the British West Indies economy. Combined with an economic depression in 1847, the increased competition caused the West India Bank to fail. As a result, planters could not pay their laborers, resulting in riots, nor could planters pay their debts. In the long run, plantation owners tried to win economic advantage by lowering wages.
  
  

Significance

• The Sugar Duties Act was a victory for the proponents of free trade, which was the cornerstone of Britain's economic policy until after World War I (1914-1918). The example of the economic troubles in the British West Indies after planters there were forced to compete with slave economies was often invoked in the debate over slavery in the United States. Abolitionists and slavery supporters argued over whether the economic decline in the British West Indies was due to emancipation or other factors.