Boston had a Tea Party which helped to start something bigger.

Think I’ll have a cup today in remembrance

I recently finished a biography of Samuel Adams called, The Revolutionary; Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff.

It’s fair to say that Boston was the center of revolutionary spirit in the colonies, and that Samuel Adams was its leader. He began his ascendancy 9 years earlier, in 1764, as a leader first in Boston, then Massachusetts, then in the Colonies, both before and during the time of the Continental Congress.

I came to realize that telling the story of the Boston Tea Party cannot really be separated from the story of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War, but Boston found itself particularly in the crosshairs of the British, especially after the Boston Tea Party with its passage of the “Coercive Acts,” known in Massachusetts as “The Intolerable Acts,” one of which actually closed Boston Harbor.

The Townshend Acts of 1767 imposed taxes on colonists taxing essentials such as paint, paper, glass, lead and tea. Ultimately, the British repealed those taxes other than the tax on tea. The British government felt the taxes were fair since much of its debt was earned fighting wars on the colonists’ behalf. The colonists, however, disagreed. They were furious at being taxed without having any representation in Parliament, and felt it was wrong for Britain to impose taxes on them to gain revenue.

The colonists drank 1.2 million pounds of tea/year, and the Brits weren’t about to give up the revenue on this item. In protest, the colonists boycotted tea sold by British East India Company and smuggled in Dutch tea, leaving British East India Company with millions of pounds of surplus tea and facing bankruptcy.

In May 1773, British Parliament passed the Tea Act which allowed British East India Company to sell tea to the colonies duty-free and much cheaper than other tea companies—but still tax the tea when it reached colonial ports.

Tea smuggling in the colonies increased, although the cost of the smuggled tea soon surpassed that of tea from British East India Company with the added tea tax. Still, with the help of prominent tea smugglers such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams —who protested taxation without representation but also wanted to protect their tea smuggling operations—colonists continued to rail against the tea tax and Britain’s control over their interests.

The Sons of Liberty were a group of colonial merchants and tradesmen founded to protest the Stamp Act and other forms of taxation. The group of revolutionists included prominent patriots such as Benedict Arnold, Patrick Henry and Paul Revere, as well as Adams and Hancock. Led by Adams, the Sons of Liberty held meetings rallying against British Parliament and protested the Griffin’s Wharf arrival of Dartmouth, a British East India Company ship carrying tea. By December 16, 1773, Dartmouth had been joined by her sister ships, Beaver and Eleanor; all three ships loaded with tea from China.

That night, a large group of men—many reportedly members of the Sons of Liberty— disguised themselves in Native American garb, boarded the docked ships and threw 342 chests of tea into the water. No one was hurt, and aside from the destruction of the tea and a padlock, no property was damaged or looted during the Boston Tea Party. The participants reportedly swept the ships’ decks clean before they left.

Though the British appointed governor, Thomas Hutchinson, tried hard to implicate Samuel Adams and John Hancock in the Tea Party, neither was identified as taking part in the events of December 16th.

There’s so much more to learn about the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. I can recommended the book mentioned in the first paragraph as one place to start.

This page from the History Channel also has good information

Where do I sign the petition to change the US National Tea day to be moved from April 21st to December 16th?

We killed Britons over a 1.5% tax on tea. A lot has changed.

Thanks, Bob and TMats for the posts!! Time to watch "John Adams" again. And do a little reading...

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Originally posted by SigSentry:
We killed Britons over a 1.5% tax on tea. A lot has changed.

Yup!! That, and that alone!!

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Originally posted by TMats:
There’s so much more to learn about the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. I can recommended the book mentioned in the first paragraph as one place to start.

Thanks TMats. It sounds like a good read. I will check it out.

You might also enjoy Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick. I thought it was quite good.

I recently bought The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson but haven't started it yet.

No wonder the Washington Compost is crumbling.

Washington Post column asks whether Boston Tea Party was 'terrorism' committed by ‘Blackfaced’ White Men
The mob 'destroyed goods worth nearly $2 million in today’s money — all because they didn’t want to obey a duly passed law,' the column stated

Published December 16, 2023 1:51pm EST


A new column in the Washington Post offered a deconstruction of one of the most iconic moments in America’s founding era, wondering if the Boston Tea Party was really an act of "terrorism" done by "White men" wearing an early form of Blackface.

Post contributing columnist Theodore Johnson speculated as to whether Americans’ heroic mythologizing of the rebellious act in Boston Harbor in response to the British Tea Act of 1773 is the correct interpretation of the actual events that day.

Describing how it’s seen in Americans’ collective cultural view, Johnson wrote, "The story of that night became lore — and the lore evolved into national myth. The Boston Tea Party has come to symbolize the revolutionary spirit that led to independence. It engraved the catchphrase ‘no taxation without representation’ on the country’s cornerstone and signified the embrace of democracy."

However, he continued, offering another version of the events that he claimed has been "swept under history’s rug to prevent the colonists from being cast as common criminals hiding behind racist face paint."

"A horde of White men disguised themselves as Native Americans — coppering their faces and donning headdresses in the same tradition that would lead to blackfaced minstrel shows decades later — to commit seditious conspiracy and destroy private property," he wrote.

"The riotous mob trespassed on three ships and destroyed goods worth nearly $2 million in today’s money — all because they didn’t want to obey a duly passed law," he added, couching the events of that as something that many would see as punishable as a crime, or even terrorism today.

Johnson cited Benjamin Carp, the author of "Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party & the Making of America, writing that the author sees that the incident all those years ago "now might be classified as an act of terrorism."

The column itself is entitled, "Was the Boston Tea Party an act of terrorism? It depends."

Further paraphrasing Carp, he added that the Tea Party "was principled and nonviolent, carried out by common folk who believed virtue was on their side. It was also criminal…"

Though Johnson’s column refrained from concluding that the classic interpretation of the Boston is harmful, he did suggest it is less true than his "White men" in Blackface view.

He wrote, "A nation’s myths — exaggerated or imagined as they might be — shape its identity. Scholars claim these myths merge fiction and truth, transform incidents into parables, become sacred and resilient in the face of scrutiny, and influence personal and group behavior."

Johnson also added that the myth is not as relatable to today’s Americans, appearing to suggest that people of color don’t see themselves represented by those original White male founders.

"They are moving stories. But the heroes of these myths don’t look like the majority of Americans today. Many of us descend from people labeled threats or, at best, sidekicks and free riders. It leaves us wondering when we’ll get to be the protagonists in a core national myth."

He added, "Being able to see yourself in a story validates both the person and the example. Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall, for example, made the United States truer to its principles. They demonstrated how a previously excluded people can be the fullest expression of — not a threat to — the nation’s virtue."

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Originally posted by CoolRich59:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
There’s so much more to learn about the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. I can recommended the book mentioned in the first paragraph as one place to start.

Thanks TMats. It sounds like a good read. I will check it out.

You might also enjoy Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick. I thought it was quite good.

I recently bought The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson but haven't started it yet.

Don’t know anything about Philbrick, but I know Atkinson, I’ve read 4 of his books, and I imagine I’ll start with that one. Thanks

quote:

Post contributing columnist Theodore Johnson speculated

Link to Authors Page

He has a new race bait book out, his niche is finding things historically and exploiting them in a racial context in order to question the real event. Typical of leftist dogma about bringing history to it's knees and replacing it with a new version that fits a political "racial" narrative.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Post contributing columnist Theodore Johnson speculated

Link to Authors Page

He has a new race bait book out, his niche is finding things historically and exploiting them in a racial context in order to question the real event. Typical of leftist dogma about bringing history to it's knees and replacing it with a new version that fits a political "racial" narrative.

After careful consideration, I have determined that Theodore Johnson is a dick.

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Originally posted by TMats:

quote:

Originally posted by CoolRich59:

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
There’s so much more to learn about the Revolutionary War and the founding of our country. I can recommended the book mentioned in the first paragraph as one place to start.

Thanks TMats. It sounds like a good read. I will check it out.

You might also enjoy Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick. I thought it was quite good.

I recently bought The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson but haven't started it yet.

Don’t know anything about Philbrick, but I know Atkinson, I’ve read 4 of his books, and I imagine I’ll start with that one. Thanks

I bought the Atkinson book last year, but found the print too small for my eyes - I'll have to find a copy for my Kindle