'Smuggler Nation'

choi

Eric Felten, The Custom of the Country; Widespread smuggling has shaped American society since the beginning. Wall Street Journal, Feb 16, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 00432368936650.html
(book reviews on Peter Andreas, Smuggler Nation; How Illicit Trade Made America. Oxford University Press, 2013)

Quote:

"In 'Smuggler Nation,' Peter Andreas recounts the well-worn story of American independence less as a lofty quest for freedom per se than as a struggle for freedom from onerous trade restrictions.

"From this founding point he goes on to survey the history of smuggling in the United States, from the illegal international slave traders of the 19th century to the bootleggers of Prohibition to the drug criminals of today. Mr. Andreas argues that, for better and worse, widespread smuggling has shaped American society.

"Policing made the criminals more professional, which in turn produced calls for a larger professional policing force.

"There was little incentive to smuggle cocaine in the 1890s, when the drug was legal. * * * But that doesn't mean that every sort of prohibition is wrong. There has been at least one thriving illicit trade that the nation did stamp out—the illegal slave trade. From the early 1800s through to the Civil War, the US forbade the international slave trade while maintaining slavery. Is it any wonder that there were opportunities for smugglers? * * * One abolitionist correctly argued, in 1824, that the way to end the slave trade was not by making ever more vigilant efforts to interdict slave traders but by simply ending slavery.


Note:
(a) The review said, "'The publication of orders for the strict execution of the Molasses Act,' Massachusetts Gov Francis Bernard reported back to England, 'has caused a greater alarm in this country than the taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757.'"
(i) Molasses Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molasses_Act
(of 1733)

Quote: "Molasses from the British West Indies, used in New England for making rum, was priced much higher than its competitors [French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indian possessions] * * * The British West Indies in the first part of the 18th Century were the most important trading partner for Great Britain so Parliament was attentive to their requests. However, rather than acceding to the demands to prohibit the [North American]colonies from trading with the non-British [West Indian] islands, Parliament passed the prohibitively high tax on the colonies for the import of molasses from these islands. * * * Largely opposed by colonists, the tax was rarely paid, and smuggling to avoid it was prominent. If actually collected, the tax would have effectively * * * destroyed much of the rum industry" in New England.

* Though the Act was enacted in 1733, UK wanted to strictly enforce it decades later.
(ii) Sir Francis Bernard, 1st Baronet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Francis_Bernard,_1st_Baronet
(1712-1779; British governor in provinces of New Jersey (1758-1760) and Massachusetts Bay (1760-1769))
(iii) Fort William Henry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_William_Henry

The massacre happened during
French and Indian War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War
(The French and Indian War (1754–1763) is the American name for the North American theater of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763))

(b) The review stated "we think of the drug lords who today smuggle smack as undesirables."

smack (n; perhaps from Yiddish shmek "sniff, whiff, pinch (of snuff)"; First Known Use: circa 1960):
"slang: HEROIN"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smack

(c) The review continued:

"In the early days of Prohibition, anyone with a skiff could make it outside the three-mile limit and load a few cases of whiskey from the 'floating warehouses' moored there. But as Daniel Okrent observed in 'Last Call,' his 2010 history of Prohibition, once the three-mile limit was pushed out to 12 miles, and the space between was heavily patrolled by Coast Guard cutters, the motley flotilla of fishermen moonlighting as rum-runners was replaced with a fleet of capacious, super-speedy 'Cigarette' boats owned by big-time racketeers, who could afford to have boats custom-built for outracing the law.
(i) skiff (n):
"any of various small boats; especially : a flat-bottomed rowboat"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skiff
(ii) Territorial waters of a nation is 12 nautical miles (22km; 14 mi).  In United States, states' jurisdiction extends into THREE miles to the sea. See United States v Louisiana (1960) 363 US 1.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/sc ... vol=363&invol=1