Salt, also known as sodium chloride (NaCl), can be considered among the most precious substances on earth, since all mammals, human beings included, must have a healthy dose of salt in their diet to survive. Little wonder, then, that the production and control of salt has been a major concern for governments since the dawn of civilization or that salt monopolization and taxation have contributed to two famous political revolutions.
The value of salt seems counterintuitive to many modern consumers, because residents of most industrialized nations suffer from a surfeit of sodium in their diet. This excess is due largely to the expansion of salt's role as a preservative and flavoring in mass-produced foods beginning in the 19th century, but most food-processing and -curative enterprises relied on salt for thousands of years before that. As such, governments have taken a very active interest in controlling the production of salt at least as far back as the Chou dynasty, which ruled China from 1027 to 256 B.C.
In France and in India, however, salt taxation played a prominent role in two of the most famous uprisings in recorded history: the French Revolution and the movement for Indian independence led by Mahatma Gandhi. In both instances overreaching taxation on salt helped fan the fires of civil unrest, leading to the eventual installation of new governments.
The French Revolution began in earnest in 1789, but seeds of the citizen revolt were planted decades earlier. Among the contributing factors was la gabelle, an excise tax levied specifically on salt. Beginning in 1691 the French monarchy established a system whereby every six years several financiers would purchase appointments as Farmers-General, officials who were empowered to collect indirect taxes on agricultural products, including salt. The costs of these appointments were substantial, and the only way to gain a sizable profit from the position was to charge high taxes on the allotted goods.
Under the Farmers-General system, French salt taxation became painfully expensive and inconsistent by region, forcing peasants to travel great distances to buy affordable salt. Often, purchasing salt outside one's home province was viewed as a form of tax evasion and carried harsh penalties from overseeing authorities. The abuses of the Farmers-General, particularly as applied to la gabelle, became a major rallying cry during the revolution, and both the position and the tax were abolished shortly after the establishment of a democratic France.
Resistance to a salt tax in India nearly 150 years later was considerably less violent but far more overt. Mahatma Gandhi and his nonviolent revolutionaries made a regular habit of noncooperation with British colonial laws during their three-decades-long efforts to secure Indian independence. Among the most notable and influential examples of this civil disobedience was a planned violation of the Salt Acts---laws that protected colonial salt monopolies by forbidding Indian peasants from making their own salt.
As part of the 1930 "Salt March," Gandhi and his followers walked over 200 miles to the coastal town of Dandi, where they used traditional Indian methods to draw salt from seawater. Thousands of Indian citizens engaged in associated demonstrations; by 1931 the repressive Salt Acts were reformed and the political power of the British colonial government was noticeably weakened. Although India would not receive full autonomy from Britain until after World War II, Gandhi's Salt March was nonetheless viewed as a key moment in the independence movement.
The uprisings in India and France are just two examples of salt's importance in human history. Humanity's universal need for it has historically made governmental monopolies and taxation of salt very lucrative sources of revenue---but that same need has made such prerogatives controversial and their exercise a threat to the longevity of those governments that employ them.
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