Episode Details

At the end of the French and Indian, or Seven Years’ War in 1763, Great Britain claimed that smuggling was a BIG problem in its North American colonies and cracked down on the practice.

But just how BIG of a problem was smuggling in North America? Why did British North Americans choose to engage in the illegal importation of goods like tea? Was it really all about cheaper prices?

Fabrício Prado, Christian Koot, and Wim Klooster join us to explore the history of smuggling in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World and to investigate the connections between smuggling and the American Revolution.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/048

Sponsor Links

• Omohundro Institute
• OI Reader
• William and Mary Quarterly-Journal of the Early Republic special American Revolution issue $10 Promotion
• The Great Courses Plus (1 Free Month of Unlimited Courses)

Complementary Blog Post

• Eugene R.H. Tesdahl, “Smuggling, the American Revolution, and the Riverine Highway” 

Complementary Episodes

• Episode 036: Abigail Swingen, Competing Visions of Empire
• Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man
• Episode 112: The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 121: Wim Klooster, The Dutch Moment in the 17th-Century Atlantic World
• Episode 139: Andrés Resédez, The Other Slavery: Indian Enslavement in the Americas
• Episode 158: The Revolutionaries’ Army
• Episode 159: Serena Zabin, Dangerous Economies
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea

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