The Sugar Maple Bubble: The Attempt to End Slavery with Maple Sugar

 

Sugar Maple Tree

            Acer Sacharinum, The sugar maple tree. Every year, about this time, thousands of Sugar Maples are tapped so that the sap can be collected. Boiled it becomes syrup or even maple sugar. And there for a very brief time in the early 1790’s intersected abolitionists, land speculators and entrepreneurs.

          

Benjamin Rush

  Dr. Benjamin Rush was an ardent abolitionist. He was also one of the most ardent supporters of the maple sugar. In an address read before the American Philosophical Society on August 19, 1791 Rush espoused the benefits of maple sugar. Each sugar maple could produce twenty to thirty gallons of sap which could be boiled down to five or six pounds of maple sugar. Some families had produced up to 600 pounds of sugar a year using just the family labor. And for all intents and purposes the sugar was as good if not better than the sugar that came from the West Indies. Rush even conducted an “experiment” where he, Alexander Hamilton, a merchant by the name of Henry Drinker and several ladies tasted tea and coffee sweetened with cane sugar and maple sugar. It was unanimous that they could not tell the difference.[i]

             And that was the key for Rush. If Americans could make their own sugar, for their own consumption and for export, people would become less dependent on West Indies sugar and the need for enslaved people would decrease there. He got many people on his side, the Quakers who were very much against slavery were in favor of the plan to end enslavement in the harsh conditions of the West Indies. He also got Thomas Jefferson and George Washington on his side.[ii]

            In the midst of this growing interest of maple sugar, Janet Livingston Montgomery sent a sample of the sugar to Edward Newenham, a member of the Irish Parliament who she had met on her trip to Ireland in 1790. In a letter to George Washington, Newenham admitted the product was good and that if it could be commercialized would be a boon to the American economy but doubted New York could produce enough of the sugar to be effective.[iii]

            Washington replied that the manufacture of maple sugar was promising because the sugar maple tree grew in several states and that there was no reason to doubt the production of the sugar would not be profitable.[iv]

            Another great proponent of the maple sugar craze was William Cooper, founder of Cooperstown

William Cooper

and father of James Fenimore Cooper. In fact Alexander Hamilton thought no one could shed more light on the subject of maple sugar production than William Cooper.[v] He thought that the desire for maple sugar would bring more people to his land grant and he could make money selling land to the settlers moving west. He also produced his own sugar. In 1791 he expected to bring in £3,000 worth of sugar to market himself alone. For the anti-alcohol groups it was also said that less profit could be made by turning maple sugar into liquor than selling it as sugar so people were less likely to distill it. Although Thomas Jefferson thought that the liquor produced tasted exactly like whiskey.[vi]

            America was now fully in the midst of a maple sugar bubble. Benjamin Rush even formed the Pennsylvania Company of Quakers to produce maple sugar. Thomas Jefferson had more than 60 maple trees planted on the property at Monticello. It was expected that even with domestic consumption the yearly export of maple sugar would be worth at least $1,000,000.

            Then the bubble burst. Several maple sugar venture in New York failed. William Cooper found that people were not willing to move to the wilderness just to produce maple sugar. Rush’s company went bust, in debt for £1,400. Supply had outstripped demand, leaving the entrepreneurs and land speculators holding the bag. As for the abolitionists, they were disappointed that maple sugar had not been able to put the sugar islands and their associated enslavement, out of business.[vii]

            From beginning to end the maple sugar bubble lasted about three years, from 1791 and 1794. Everyone was disappointed, except for those who like the flavor of maple. Thousands of trees are still tapped every year and their sap boiled down for maple syrup and even a little maple sugar. Perhaps next time you take a bite of syrup covered pancakes you’ll think of Benjamin Rush and his attempt to use maple trees as a way to end slavery in the West Indies.

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[i] Rush, Benjamin An account of the sugar maple-tree, of the United States, and of the methods of obtaining sugar from it, together with observations upon the advantages both public and private of this sugar. : In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, Esq. secretary of state of the United States, and one of the vice presidents of the American Philosophical Society. : Read in the American Philosophical Society, on the 19, of August, 1791, and extracted from the third volume of their Transactions now in the press. / By Benjamin Rush, M.D. Professor of the institutes and of clinical medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/N19030.0001.001 accessed 3/3/21

[ii] Lucia C. Stanton, 11/90. Originally published as "Sharing the Dreams of Benjamin Rush," in Fall Dinner at Monticello, November 2, 1990, in Memory of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, VA: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1990), 1-12. https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/sugar-maple accessed 3/3/21

[iii] “To George Washington from Edward Newenham, 10 March 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-07-02-0309. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 7, 1 December 1790 – 21 March 1791, ed. Jack D. Warren, Jr. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp. 538–542.]

[iv] “From George Washington to Edward Newenham, 5 September 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-08-02-0349. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Presidential Series, vol. 8, 22 March 1791 – 22 September 1791, ed. Mark A. Mastromarino. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999, p. 496.]

[v] “From Alexander Hamilton to William Cooper, 3 August 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-09-02-0006. [Original source: The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 9, August 1791 – December 1791, ed. Harold C. Syrett. New York: Columbia University Press, 1965, p. 8.]

[vi] “From Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1 May 1791,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-20-02-0101. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 20, 1 April–4 August 1791, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982, pp. 342–344.]

[vii] Lucia C. Stanton, 11/90. Originally published as "Sharing the Dreams of Benjamin Rush," in Fall Dinner at Monticello, November 2, 1990, in Memory of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, VA: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1990), 1-12. https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/sugar-maple accessed 3/3/21

Henry Brockholst Livingston: Soldier, Lawyer, Duelist, Judge

Henry Brockholst Livingston

 

Henry Brockholst Livingston or Brockholst Livingston as he preferred to be called was born on November 25, 1757, the son of William Livingston, future governor of New Jersey, and his wife Susanna French Livingston. He was educated, eventually graduating from the College of New Jersey in 1774. One of his classmates was James Madison. Brockholst intended to continue his studies but the Revolutionary War got in the way.

 

Philip Schuyler

           Brockholst rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the army. He served first as an aide to Philip Schuyler, then as an aide to Benedict Arnold during the Battle of Saratoga. He was one of the officers who signed a letter beseeching Arnold not to abandon the army between the two Battles of Saratoga.[1]

Benedict Arnold

            In 1779 he left the army on furlough to serve as personal secretary to John Jay, his brother in law and newly appointed minister to Spain. They learned French on the way across the Atlantic. Brockholst also picked up Spanish quickly in Spain. He held the post until 1782 when he returned to America. On the way back to the States, his ship was captured by the British and he was taken to New York as a prisoner. Three weeks later General Guy Carleton arrived in New York City and paroled Brockholst as a lieutenant colonel in the army. Brockholst was shocked to find that in his absence he had been “retired” from the army. He wrote to Washington, unsure if he had violated a rule of war.[2] Washington assured him he had done nothing wrong.[3]

John Jay

            Henry began reading the law and in 1783 passed the New York Bar. He was in private practice from 1783-1802. In 1785 he survived an assassination attempt. He wen on in 1790 to deliver a Fourth of July address at St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City in front of President Washington and both houses of congress.[4]

            In 1798 Brockholst was accosted by a Federalist in the street (Brockholst was an ardent anti federalist) who struck his rather prominent nose. A duel ensued in which the other man was killed. (Read more about that here)

            In 1800 Brockholst, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton served as the defense team for Levi Weeks who was accused of murdering Gulielma "Elma" Sands, a young woman who he was either courting or engaged to. Despite overwhelming evidence against Weeks, he was acquitted after five minutes of jury deliberation.

Alexander Hamilton

Aaron Burr

         

   In 1802 Brockholst was made a justice of the New York Supreme Court. A few years later Thomas Jefferson appointed him an associate justice of the Supreme Court in a recess appointment. This was probably a reward for the work Brockholst had done for Jefferson in New York in helping him get elected. He spent a great deal of his time on the bench agreeing with Chief Justice John Marshall.

Chief Justice John Marshall

            Brockholst held his supreme court seat until he died in Washington D.C. in 1823. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. He was mourned by nine children from three wives. 

Brockholst's grave in Brooklyn

 

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[1] Robert R. Livingston Papers, Reel 1

[2] “To George Washington from Henry Brockholst Livingston, 16 June 1782,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-08702

[3] “From George Washington to Henry Brockholst Livingston, 3 July 1782,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-08829

[4] “[Diary entry: 5 July 1790],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/01-06-02-0001-0007-0005. [Original source: The Diaries of George Washington, vol. 6, 1 January 1790 – 13 December 1799, ed. Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1979, pp. 85–86.]

 

Pointy End Toward the Bad Guy: Chancellor Livingston's Sword

The Chancellor's colichemarde from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

Chancellor Robert R. Livingston was nothing if not a fashionable man. As such he frequently carried a sword. He was not a soldier, but the style of the time called for men of a certain position to carry a blade.

One of the swords that the Chancellor carried during his life was a small sword known as a colichemarde. The colichemarde was developed in the 1680’s and was extremely popular for about the next half century. The sword itself was transitional in nature, shorter and lighter than the rapier’s that proceeded it, hence “small sword”. Not that it was particularly small, the Chancellor’s sword was 39 ½ inches long from its steel tip to its ornate silver hit and grip. The silver work was created by silversmith John Parry of London. [i]

            Colichemarde blades were triangular in shape. The blade started fairly wide near the hilt, which made an excellent surface for parrying a blow from an enemy, but after several inches narrowed sharply to a thin blade with shape edges for slashing and a very sharp point made for lethal thrusting. These swords were ideal for use in duels.

            The colichemarde sword was on its way out as a fashionable sword when the Chancellor was wearing it. Perhaps it would have gone completely out of style had not another famous American taken to wearing one during the French and Indian War, George Washington. Washington’s sword was even more ornate than the Chancellor’s. Historians at Mount Vernon believe that Washington is wearing the sword in at least two portraits done of him.[ii]

The hilt of the sword at Washington's hip appears to match the hilt of his colichemarde

Again, the hilt of the sword shown seems to match the hilt of Washington's colichemarde

            Click here to see one of Mount Vernon’s curators explore George Washington’s colichemarde.  

            As far as we know the Chancellor never fought a duel with his colichemarde, but he would have proved a lethal adversary with this blade in his hand. Had he. Perhaps his size and the sword on his hip prevented many duels he could have found himself in, were he a smaller man or carrying a different sword

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[i] The Chancellor’s sword is in the collection of the New York Historical Society. Information about the blade comes from their online collections guide.

[ii] Information on George Washington’s colichemarde comes from George Washington’s Mount Vernon