The American Revolution was toasted, and even partly sparked, by wine — one wine above all. Madeira, the amber fortified wine of a Portuguese island, was the everyday drink of the colonial elite and, thanks to a quirk of British trade law, a small act of rebellion in every glass. It flowed at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and three years earlier a shipload of it had helped ignite the crisis that led to war2.
Quick facts
- Madeira was the favourite wine of the American colonies and its founders.
- A quirk of trade law let Madeira avoid British duties, making it a patriot’s drink.
- The 1768 seizure of John Hancock’s Madeira sloop Liberty sparked riots in Boston.
- The signers toasted the Declaration of Independence with Madeira in 1776.
The patriots’ wine
Why Madeira? The answer lies in the fine print of empire. British law tightly controlled and taxed the wine trade, but Madeira, produced on a Portuguese island in the Atlantic, slipped through a loophole and could be shipped directly to the colonies without passing through England or paying the same duties6. That made it cheaper, more available — and, increasingly, a symbol. To drink Madeira was quietly to sidestep British trade control, and by the 1770s the colonists thought of themselves as a nation of Madeira drinkers2.
The Liberty affair
Wine did not just accompany the Revolution; it helped touch it off. In May 1768 a sloop named Liberty, owned by the wealthy Boston merchant John Hancock, arrived carrying more than a hundred casks of Madeira. When a customs officer tried to inspect it, Hancock’s men reportedly locked him below deck until most of the wine had been quietly landed — duty unpaid1.
On 10 June, marines from the warship HMS Romney seized the Liberty in reprisal. The waterfront erupted: a Boston mob rioted, customs officials were beaten and hounded, and the crisis helped convince London to send troops into Boston — a fateful step that led, less than two years later, to the Boston Massacre5. A cargo of wine had become a spark of revolution.
Toasting independence
When the break finally came, Madeira was there to mark it. The Founders were devoted to the wine: Benjamin Franklin kept a glass of Madeira at his elbow as he helped draft the Declaration, and when the document was adopted, the signers are said to have toasted the new nation with Madeira at Thomas Jefferson’s urging3.
A glass of Madeira stood at Franklin’s elbow as he helped write the Declaration.— a scene from the summer of 17767
The devotion ran through the whole founding generation, as a glance at their cellars shows7:
| Founder | Their wine connection |
|---|---|
| John Hancock | His Madeira sloop Liberty was seized in 1768 |
| Benjamin Franklin | Kept a glass of Madeira while drafting the Declaration |
| Thomas Jefferson | Urged the signers to toast independence with Madeira |
| George Washington | Famously fond of a daily glass of Madeira |
Wine, taxes and liberty
Behind the toasts lay a serious principle. The colonists’ quarrel with Britain was, at heart, about taxation and control of trade — the Navigation Acts, the Townshend duties, the whole apparatus by which the mother country profited from colonial commerce4. Madeira, the wine that escaped those duties, fit the patriot cause perfectly: it was pleasure and protest in the same cup. Smuggling it was both good business and a political statement.
A founding toast
It is easy to forget how much wine ran through the birth of the United States — not as a footnote, but as commerce, symbol and spark2. The men who built the republic were, many of them, serious wine lovers who went on to plant vineyards and dream of an American wine industry. And it all began with a glass of amber Madeira: the wine Americans drank, in the end, to declare themselves Americans.
Frequently asked questions
More from this day in wine history
See everything else that happened on September 6 — who was born, what was bottled, and which laws were signed.
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References
- Boston Public Library, Research Guides — 1768: The Liberty Affair. ↑
- Decanter — Independence Day Celebrations: Madeira and the Founding Fathers. ↑
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — John Hancock. ↑
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Townshend Acts. ↑
- New England Historical Society — The Liberty Affair. ↑
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Madeira (wine). ↑
- International Wine & Food Society — The Wine of Patriots: how Madeira shaped the American Revolution. ↑
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