Revolutionary War Food Riots

Crowds of civilian men and women rioted over food prices or to claim access to foodstuffs from 1775 to 1779. On more than 30 occasions, crowds confronted merchants who had raised prices on West Indies sugar, farmers who had withheld salt or produce from the market, and even local Patriot committees responsible for storing tea. The riots occurred in rural towns as well as port cities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Many of these riots expressed support for the war effort. Some rioters sought to secure lower prices on behalf of Continental Army soldiers and their families. A few outbreaks revealed potential conflict between military and civilian supply. Although the riots were a response to wartime economic disruptions, they also expressed a vision of social fairness that had shaped the Patriot movement during the prewar years. They reflected a deeply held, popular understanding of patriotism in the era of the Revolution.

Food rioters in Revolutionary America acted in the traditions of the English poor, whose purposeful riots aimed at preventing the export of grain, securing lower prices, and forcing goods onto the market in times of shortage. A broad belief in a popular right of access to necessary foodstuffs at reasonable prices—a “moral economy”—characterized such crowds in the 18th century. Colonists in North America had rarely rioted in these ways, in part because they suffered less often from shortages of flour, grain, or bread. But the Revolutionary War brought economic and social dislocation. Britain's naval blockade deprived the colonies of imported goods; military mobilization redoubled demand for domestic foodstuffs and manufactures; warfare disrupted production in many areas. Facing shortages, Americans acted much like British crowds across the Atlantic. Women's participation in some riots, and the rioters’ frequent choice of paying their victims a “reasonable” price for seized goods, show that the American crowds were following Old World precedents.

America's wartime crowds also acted in accord with Patriot ideas about social and economic obligations among neighbors and countrymen. Since 1765, the resistance [Page 737]movement had engaged many colonists in boycotts of trade. Trade boycotts sought to pressure English merchants and manufacturers into lobbying Parliament to change policy, but they also aimed at changing relationships within American society. Those who joined the movement agreed not to import, consume specific foreign goods, or raise prices on scarce goods on hand. Well-to-do colonists in particular pledged to limit use of imported finery and patronize local artisans instead. Everyone who joined promised to put aside profit for a common sacrifice. In effect, the boycotts created what might be called a “Patriot Economy,” a system of exchange ruled by distinctive ideals of fairness. Patriots transacted with those who shared their ideals, and anyone who violated the boycotts might be shunned and labeled an “enemy to the country.” These agreements were enforced by self-appointed bodies and elected committees throughout the colonies. Patriot committees depended in turn on crowds and the threat of crowds. When the First Continental Congress adopted a trade boycott, the Continental Association of 1774, it placed these values—and these forms of coercion and mobilization—at the center of the Patriot movement.

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