Most of us learned in school about the Boston Tea Party and have heard the story over years in popular culture. Normally, it is told with some variations, as taxes or the price of tea went up, and local patriots spontaneoulsy dumped the product into the harbor.
That’s not quite right. Actually, the problem was that the price of tea went down. And the “party” was a carefully planned protest.
The British East India Company was having serious financial problems and had a glut of tea. Showing that bailouts are not a modern American thing, Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773, lowering the tea tax and basically handing the company a monopoly of the colonial tea trade.
This allowed the price of tea to drop below even the price of tea that was being smuggled into the colonies. A lot of American merchants stood to lose a ton of money.
When three ships arrived in Boston loaded with tea, a group of colonists demanded that Gov. Thomas Hutchinson send it back to England. He refused.
Samuel Adams organized his group, the Sons of Liberty, to take action and other local groups participated as well. There were meetings and plans were made in advance. But since this was happening in December in New England, they needed to fortify themselves first.
A crowd that some estimates list as nearly half the population gathered to hear Adams speak his mind. A lot of rum punch was set out and the man in charge of keeping the bowls full had a hard time keeping up.
On December 16, 1773 — the night before the tea was to be offloaded from the ships — a large and let’s say, “festive” group of citizens showed up, with some dressed as Mohawk Indians showed up and dumped over 300 chests of tea into the harbor while a crowd cheered them on. Many of the rebels had to retire because they were so drunk they got sick.
The British were furious at this act of rebellion and passed the Coercive Acts (sometimes called Intolerable Acts) in 1774. They established military rule, closed the harbor, and helped accelerate the independence movement.
There were also other, less famous tea parties in New York, Connecticut, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Annapolis. In Annapolis, a ship’s captain was kidnapped and his ship was burned. The women of Edenton, North Carolina, held their own Tea Party protest, which will be covered on HistoryPie.com later.
Sources:
Ayres, Thomas. “That’s Not in My American History Book.”
“This Day in History — The Boston Tea Party.” history.com
Wonderful!
thanks!
Thanks for your research and presentation of historic Truth. I have heard, and read, of some of these “realities” to the history story of the Boston Tea Party, partially provided by the Edenton Historic Society in reference to the stories of their very own, yet not very heroic, protests. It is not, in my humble opinion, a matter of rewriting history, as some wish to do today, but rather writing it rightly for all to know the truth.
I couldn’t agee with you more and it shouldn’t be so hard or tricky to get the truth.
I’ve never heard this version of events Mike. And sorry I missed you tonight at the arts center, I had to attend a meeting at church.
thanks for reading.
it was a good event.