Danver Steven L. (Edited). Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia (ENG)

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abridgement of what are called English liberties.” He declared that if “nothing

more than declatory acts or resolves, it is all over with us. The friends ...of

anarchy will be afraid of nothing be it ever so extravagant.” In other words, if all

the British government did was repeal acts that were unpopular with colonists

and never punished them for offensive acts, they were all in for a lot of trouble

in the future. These letters found their way into the hands of American diplomat

Benjamin Franklin, who sent them to Boston to be read only by a few “Men of

Worth.” Franklin was an idealist when it came to international diplomacy. He truly

felt that a few reasonable men could solve all the problems of the nati on by

common sen se and logic. He thought if his “Men of Worth” read the letters, they

would blame Hutc hinson for the un popular policies and taxes rather than the

British government. Franklin could not have been more wrong. Instead of being

read by a discretionary few, the letters were reprinted into a pamphlet, and by

June 1773, they had circulated around the entire colony. Instead of reason and

logic, heated anger and simmering suspicions dictated the colonist’s r eactions.

For many patriots in Massachusetts, their earlier suspicions were conﬁrmed. The

British government was looking for ways to suppress their freedoms and their

personal liberties. They would do this at ﬁrst by taxation without representation.

The Tea Act gave radical patriots the perfect excuse to protest the government.

The act was boycotte d not only in Boston, but also in cities such as New York,

Philadelphia, and Charleston, where tea agents either resigned or shipments were

refused by local merchants. In Charleston, the tea was unloaded and destroyed

on the docks. In New York, the shipment did not arrive on time or at all. In Phila-

delphia, the captain of the ship was persuaded to turn around and head back to

England. However, in Boston, Governor Hutchinson was determined that the tea

would be unloaded and taxed accordingly. On November 20, 1773, the ship Dart-

mouth arrived in Boston Harbor with a load of Darjeeling tea. The Sons of Liberty

made every effort to make sure the tea was not unloa ded onto the dock s. Mobs

roamed the streets of Boston, intimidating local Crown authorities and tea con-

signees. They tried unsuccessfully, through coercion and i ntimidation, to make

the consignees refuse the tea. But the agents ignored the patriots, clinging stead-

fastly to their loyalty to the Crown. The Boston Sons of Liberty was led by patriot

Samuel Ada ms, whom the British thought of as a “cunning p rofessional politi-

cian” who exploited mob rule for his own beneﬁt.

On November 29, 1773, thousands of people gathered at Faneuil Hall, but soon

the numbers grew even more, and the meeting was moved to the Old South Meet-

ing House. Old South was the largest building i n Boston at the time and was a

regular m eeting place for patriots. The crowd that gathered on that night was a

mix of men who could vote (21-year-old landowners) and those who could not.

It was called a “body of the people,” and no one was excluded from the meeting.

194 Boston Tea Party (1773)

Samuel Adams organized the meeting. He declared that “Whether it is the ﬁrm

resolution of this body that tea shall not only be sent back but that no duty shall

be paid thereon?” Twenty-ﬁve men were assigned to guard the Dartmouth, making

sure that the tea would not be unloaded and taxed, while the consignees considered

the situation.

The f ollowing day, at 9:00 in the morning, groups of Bostonians converged

once more at Old South. Portrait painter John Singleton Copley was assigned as

moderator of the meeting between the cons ignees and the patriots. Copley, who

was married to a daughter of one of the tea consignees, tried to help the two groups

reach an agr eement about wha t should be done with the tea on the t hree ships

idling in Boston Harbor. The consignees offered to store the tea on land, until they

received other instructions from London. However, if the tea was removed from

the ships, it would be taxed, even if was to be returned, which was unaccep table

to the patriots. The assembly at Old South agreed that the tea should never be

landed. Future ﬁrst lady Abigail Adams attended the meeting. She wrote to her

friend Mercy Otis Warren that “The t ea that bainfull weed is arrived. Great and

effectual opposition has been made to landing of it ...the proceedings of our citi-

zens have been united, spirited and ﬁrm. The ﬂame is kindled and like lightening it

catches from soul to soul.” The people were united in their resolve to have their

voices heard, and they did not want that tea to be unloaded.

In the meantime, two more East India ships arrived in Boston, bearing more tea.

The Eleanor arrived on December 2 and was followed by the Beaver on Decem-

ber 7. On December 8, Governor Hutchinson ordered Admiral Mountagu not to

let any ships leave Bost on Harbor withou t a special pass. Because the l aw stated

that the tea tax was to be collected within 20 days of a ship’s arrival, the deadline

for the Dartm outh was m idnight on Decembe r 16. If the tax on the tea had not

been paid by then, the ship could be conﬁscated by royal authorities. D uring the

interim, the Sons of Liberty kept the public fervor high with public meetings, some

as large as 5,000 people ﬁlling the streets around the Old South Meeting House,

denouncing the Tea Act. This is especially impressive g iven that only about

15,000 people lived in Boston at the time. A third of the city’s population turned

out to protest the Tea Act. The Sons of Liberty petitioned the captains of the ships

to return their cargo to England. While local tea agents ﬂatly refused to return the

tea, the owner of the Dartmouth, a Quaker from Nantucket by the name of Francis

Rotch, agreed to sail back to England with the tea. However, he needed special

permission by the governor, or he risked having his ship ﬁred on by the armed fort

that overlooked Boston Harbor, something he could not afford.

On the morning of December 16, the day of the deadline for the tea tax to be

paid on the Dartmouth, Old South once more ﬁlled with thousands of people for

the last meeting on how to deal with the unwanted tea. The patriot leaders asked

Boston Tea Party (1773) 195

Francis Rotch to make a personal request of the governor to allow him to sail his

ship back to England safely. This would be the last legal means of preventing the

tea from being unloaded. Rotch left the meeting house and traveled to nearby

Milton, where Governor Hutchinson was staying. Rotc h was gone a good part of

the day. Yet the crowd waited, lighting lanterns in the meeting hall as the day

turned to night. When he returned to Old South later that evening, he announ ced

that the governor had refused his request to sail safely out of Boston Harbor.

At the news that Governor Hutchinson refused to budge on his position, Samuel

Adams gave a prearranged signal at Old South, declaring “This meeting can do

nothing more to save the country.” With that, 50 to 60 men of all walks of life

abruptly left the meeting h ouse. Among the group of men, d ressed as Mohawk

Indians with blankets and headdress, were ma sons, carpenters, barber s, a silver-

smith, farmers, doctors, and a teacher. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone

was dressed as an Indian. Some simply smeared soot on their faces. Along with

Adams, other Sons of Liberty joining the group included Paul Revere and John

Hancock, whom the English regarded as a rich and vain businessman. They

headed to Grifﬁn’s Wharf, where the three ships were a nchored. Upon boarding

the ships, the men used tom ahawks (or hatchets if they were not dressed as Indi-

ans) to force open 342 chests of tea (estima ted to be around 18.5 million cups of

tea) worth £18 ,000 (about $1 million today) and threw it into the harbor waters

below. A crowd on the docks cheered their actions, calling for more “saltwater

tea.” “Boston’s a tea pot tonight!” it was declared. The next morning, men rowed

out to the harbor to beat what tea remained with oars and paddles, to make sure

none of it could be retrieved. The waters of Boston H arbor turned brown and

remained so for several days. Patriot John Adams declared that “so bold, so daring,

so ﬁrm, intrepid and inﬂexible, that I can’t but consider it as an epoch in history.”

Only one man was arrested for the Boston Tea Party, Francis Akeley (Ekley). The

Boston Tea Party, as it became known, was quickly replicated throughout the other

colonies. In Annapolis, New York, and New Jersey, there were incidents of

destruction of East India tea.

At ﬁrst, the Boston Tea Party was hardly noticed across the pond in Great Brit-

ain. When the news arrived in Parliament on January 20, 1764, the members of the

house were more concerne d with dealing with Benjamin Franklin, who by that

time had confessed to sending the Hutchinson letters to Massachusetts, rather than

dealing with the governor himself. In an effort to save face, Franklin even offered

to pay for the tea out of his own pocket. However, it was too late, both for his

career as a diplomat and for the easygoing relationship between the colonies and

the mother country. The Boston Tea Party was soon magniﬁed into an unforgivable

insult to Britain herself. Parliament and the king, which had more or less neglected

the American colonies up until the Seven Years’ War, saw the Boston Tea Party as

196 Boston Tea Party (1773)

a deliberate destruction of private property. They viewed the American colonists’

actions as blatant disregard for the law or royal authority, and they would no

longer treat the colonists with such leniency. When it was suggested in Parliament

that the tea act be repealed, Prime Minister Lord North pointed out that the “Amer-

icans have tarred and feathered your subjects [local government agents], plun-

dered your merchants, burnt your ships, denied all obedience to your laws and

authority; yet so clement and so long forbearing has our conduct been that it is

incumbent on us now to take a different course.” Parliament intended to make an

example out of Boston. The people co uld not act like a petulant chi ld and expect

to get away with bad behavior any longer.

In retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed the ﬁrst of

four laws that would be known as the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts. The ﬁrst act,

known as the Boston Port Act, closed the port of Boston until the East India Com-

pany and the custom service had been paid in full for the tea that had been thrown

overboard during the Boston Tea Party. The total sum was estimated to be around

£10,000 in silver. The only exceptions were food and ﬁrewood. Then the Massa-

chusetts Government Ac t w as pa ssed, which altered the province’s charter. It

appointed a new council to replace the elected one, increasing the power of t he

royal governor. Special town meetings were forbidden, discouraging political

opponents from speaking up publicly, like the meetings that had been held at the

Old South Meeting House. The third act was the Justice Act, allowing the royal

governor of a colony to move trials to other colonies or even to England, if he

thought that the jury would not be impartial. And the last act, the Quartering

Act, allowed military commanders to use private houses and empty buildings to

quarter soldiers, at the public’s expense. These acts did not just impact Boston,

but also all of Massachusetts and the rest of the 13 colonies. They helped unite

the colonists against what they viewed as the tyran ny of Br itish rule. The rest of

the colonies rallied to Boston’s aid during the Coercive Act s. The people of

Charleston sent money and rice to Boston citizens, while Connecticut and Long

Island sent sheep and New York promised 10 years of food. The Sons of Liberty,

which had chapters throughout the 13 colonies, rallied more public support in deﬁ-

ance of the British authority. On April 1, 1774, four new regiments arrived in Mas-

sachusetts, and Thomas Hutchinson was replaced by Ge neral Thomas Ga ge. A

scant 10 months after the Boston Tea Party, the First Continental Congress met

in Philadelphia, to decide how best to deal wi th unjust taxation and the unfair

treatment they felt the colonies were receiving from Great Britain.

What started as a simple act of dumping tea overboard had united the colonies

under one cause, igniting their passions for liberty and freedom from oppression.

The colonists saw the coercive acts a s “unjust, illegal and oppressive, and that

we and every American are sharers in the insults offered to the town of Boston.”

Boston Tea Party (1773) 197

All the colonists of the era had grown up with relatively little supervision from the

mother country. They were used to freedoms not found anywhere in Europe. At the

end of the Seven Years’ War, when Britain ﬁnally began to pay closer attention to

its American holdings, the colonist s chafed und er the new restraints. Rather tha n

except their lowered station in life, they rose up and challenged the mother coun-

try, claiming their right to representation in Parliament, their right to voice

opposition to the Crown, and their right to live as free men. While the ofﬁcial start

of the American Revolutio n was still more than two year s away, th e Boston Tea

Party was a turning point in the resistance of the colonists to British rule. It helped

to further polarize sides between Loyalists and patriots, deepening the divide and

helping to escalate the oncoming revolution.

The Boston Tea Party has become a symbol of the American spirit. Few stu-

dents leave school without reading an account of the Tea Party, and for good rea-

son. It showcases a moment in history when the American people took a stand

for what they believed in. It helped to stir a revolutionary spirit, not only in Boston,

but far beyond to the rest of the 13 colonies. The Boston Tea Party was crucial in

setting the stage for the ﬁght for American independence. It is a symbol that still

endures today.

—Lorri Brown

See also all entries under Stamp Act Protests (1765); Boston Massacre (1770); Pine Tree

Riot (1772).

Further Reading

Commanger, Henry Steele, and Richard B. Morris. The Spirit of Seventy-six: The Story of

the American Revolution as Told by Its Participants. New York: Castle Books, 2002.

Lancaster, Bruce. The American Revolution. New York: Mariner Books, 2001.

Taylor, Al an. American Colonies. New York: Penguin Books, 2001.

Wood, Gordon S. The Americaniza tion of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Penguin, 2004.

198 Boston Tea Party (1773)

Coercive Acts (1774)

Following the rebellion of the Boston Tea Party, the British government decided it

was time to put American colonists back in their place. Beginning in March 1774,

the British government, under Prime Minister Lord North, passed the ﬁrst of four

laws that would be known as the Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts. These acts

impacted not just Boston, but all of Massachusetts and the rest of the 13 colonies.

The ﬁrst act, known as the Boston Port Act, closed the port of Boston until the

East India Company and the custom service had been paid in full for tea that had

been thrown overboard during the Boston Tea Party. While ﬁrewood and food

could still be delivered to the Boston port, the ofﬁcial port of entry was moved to

Marblehead, and the capital of Massachusetts was moved to Salem. Later on that

same spring, Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act, which altered

the province’s charter. It increased the royal governor’s power by replacing the

elected council with an appointed one. It also f orbade special town meetings in

order to discourage public speaking by political opponents.

The third act was the Justice Act. It allowed the royal governor of a colony to

move trials to other colonies or even to England, if he thought that the jury would

not be impartial. This act protected British ofﬁcials, who were then encouraged to

enforce the new, harsher laws with vigor. For example, any ofﬁcials who were

accused of capital crimes during the suppression of riots or during tax revenue col-

lections could be tried across the Atlantic, in England. The fourth act, the Quarter-

ing Act, gave broad authority to military commanders and allowed soldiers to be

quartered in private houses and empty buildings, at the public’s expense.

The Quebec Act, although not part of the four Coercive Acts, is often grouped

with them because it brought the American colon ists one step closer to their bid

for independence. Quebec was a newly acquired territory by the British.

Parliament granted greater religious freedom to the Catholics in Quebec. This

alarmed American Protestants, w ho linked Catholicism with despotism. If

Catholics were given favored status in Quebec, who was to say they would not get

favored status in Massachusetts, New York, or Pennsylv ania? The Quebec Act gave

civi l government and religious freedom to the people of Quebec that had been

denied to the colonists. It also extended the territory of Quebec to the Ohio River,

voiding the sea-to-sea boundaries of charters in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and

Virginia.

The C oercive Acts and the Quebec Act reached far beyond Massachusetts.

Togethe r, all these acts conﬁrm ed fears of many colon ists that Parliame nt would

oppress all their rights. After all, if Parliament could close a port in Boston, what

was to stop them from closing a port in N ew York, South Carolina, or Virginia?

199

If they could change the charter of Massachusetts, what would prevent them from

changing the charters of the other 12 colonies? In the quest to keep colonists in

their place, the British government inadvertently stirred up revolutionary spirit

and set them on the road to independence.

—Lorri Brown

Further Reading

Faragher, John Mack, Mari Jo Buhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan H. Armitage.

Out of Many: A History of the American People. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prent ice Hall,

1995.

Norton, Mary Beth, David M. Katzman, Paul D. Scott, Howard P. Chudacoff, and Thomas

G. Patterson. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Boston: Houghton

Mifﬂin Company, 1994.

USHistory.org. “The Intolerable Acts.” http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/

intolerable.htm (accessed August 23, 2008).

First Continental Congress (1774)

Following the Boston Tea Party and the Coercive Acts, American colonists began

to realize that their interests differed from those of Great Britain, both culturally

and economically. By the summer of 1774, concerns and unrest grew so much

among the colonists t hat they de cided hold a meeting to ﬁgure out th e best way

to deal with the u njust laws and taxation imposed upon them by King George III

and Parliament. Fifty-ﬁve delegates from 12 colonies (Georgia did not send

anyone) convened on September 5, 1774, at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia, to

discuss the needs and concerns of their respective colonies.

The delegates who gathered in Philadelphia were mainly merchants, lawyers, or

planters. Among them were some of the future leaders of the American cause,

including Boston cousins John and Samuel Adams, and Virginia planters George

Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These men r epresented a wide spectrum of

political attitudes, from conservatives such as John Jay of New York, to revolution-

aries such as Pat rick Henry of Virginia. Most of the delega tes fell somewher e in

between. They were looking for greater political independence, but not ready to

make a ﬁnal break with Great Britain through war.

The delegates had three main points that t hey needed to address during their

meeting. First, they needed to deﬁne American grievances with Great Britain. Sec-

ond, they had to develop a plan of resistance. Third, they needed to outline their

200 Boston Tea Party (1773)

future relationship with Great Britain. The ﬁrst point was easy to deﬁne. The

delegates declared that all colonists sprang from a common tradition, and that they

all enjoyed the same rights guaranteed by the English constitution as well as by

their individual colony charters. For the second point, the delegates decided that

the best course of action was to continue an unofﬁcial boycott of British goods

and therefore silently resist the unfair taxation placed upon them. The Continental

Congress set about placing sanctions against the British. There would be no impor-

tation of British goods, and no colonial exports to Britain. While this boycott

against Great Britain continued, the colonists would petition King George directly,

for relief.

The last point was the hardest to deﬁne. Some men, suc h as Patrick Henry

denouncedanyloyaltytotheBritishParliament, instead claiming they only

needed to show allegiance to King George. Conservatives like Joseph Galloway

of Pennsylvania wanted to establish a new legislative branch, which could decide

American laws together with Parliament. In the end, the delegates settled on a

compromise drafted by Thomas Jefferson, entitled the Declaration of Rights and

Grievances . In the document, the delegates deemed the 13 acts that the British

Parliament had passed since the end of the French and Indian War void, since they

violated the basic rights of the colonists.

Out of the Continental Congress several committees were formed, including

one for observation and safety, which took over the role o f local government

throughout the 13 co lonies. This c ommitt ee helped organize a militia, extralega l

of course, and combined to form a colony-wide congress. The committee was also

responsible for suppressing Loyalist v iews in newspapers as well as in general

society, when the need arose. These committees helped bridge the gap between

old ways and new and marked the beginning of the term “state” rather than colony.

American independence was al ready being won at local levels, without formal

acknowledgement and without bloodshed, six months before the ﬁrst battles of

the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord.

—Lorri Brown

Further Reading

Faragher, John Mack, Mari Jo Buhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan H. Armitage.

Out of Many: A History of the American People. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,

1995.

Norton, Mary Beth, David M. Katzman, Paul D. Scott, Howard P. Chudacoff, and Thomas

G. Patterson. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Boston: Houghton

Mifﬂin Company, 1994.

USHistory.org. “Proceedings of the First Continental Congress.” http://www.ushistory.org/

declaration/related/congress.htm (accessed August 28, 2008).

Boston Tea Party (1773) 201

Sons of Liberty

In 1765, the British Parliament pass ed the Stamp Act, which called for a special

tax stamp on all printed paper, such as newspapers. Though it affected nearly

every American colonis t, merchants an d printers were the most heavily affected.

The Stamp Act ignited protests throughout the 13 colonies, as well as in Nova

Scotia and the Caribbean. On August 14, 1765, an efﬁgy of the Massachusetts

stamp distributor, Andrew Oliver, was hung in a tree in Newbury Street in Boston.

The efﬁgy was burned and Oliver’s house on Kilby Street was stoned and looted of

any valuable contents. The British militia did not dare interfere with the rioting.

The gentry class, while glad of the protests, was afraid of mob action and sought

a way to keep control of resistance acts. As a way to control the rebellions brewing

over the Stamp Act, these men formed an intercolonial association called the Sons

of Liberty. At ﬁrst it was made up of merchants, lawyers, and craftsmen. Branches

spread quickly through the rest of the colonies and soon included many working-

class men. By early 1766, these group s formed a common bond throughout the

colonies, from New Hampshire to South Carolina.

The main goal of the Sons of Liberty was a repeal of the Stamp Act, viewing it

as a violation of the people’s liberties by corrupt and self-serving rulers. They pub-

lished pamphlets and circulated petitions that stressed passive means of resistance,

such as boycotting English goods. The Sons of Liberty helped spread their mes-

sages through local newspapers as well. Many members of the Sons of Liberty

were in the printing trade, and even those printers who were not part of the group

sympathized with the cause. After all, the Stamp Act affected printers more than

anyone. Crowd action, such as riots and other violence, was used only a last resort.

While some imposters used the Sons of Liberty for personal revenge and gain, the

group policed itself to keep corruption to a minimum.

It did not take long before the Stamp Act was repealed in March 1766. The Sons

of Liberty helped to organize joyful celebrations at what they perceived as a

victory. Following the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Sons of Liberty c hapters dis-

solved. However, just two years later, chapters took up arms once again, in the face

of more unfair taxes passed by the British Parliament.

In 1768, the Townshend Revenue Act was passed, placing special taxes on

common goods such as lead, paint, glass, paper, and tea. The Townshend Act gar-

nered a n even quicker response from colonists than t he Stamp Act. The newly

revived Sons of Liberty embarked on a two-year campaign against the Townshend

Acts, playing a vital role in spreading rebellion throughout the colonies. In Boston,

the Sons of Liberty invited hundreds of citizens to dine with them each August 14

to commemorate the ﬁrst Stamp Act uprising. In Charleston, the Sons of Liberty

202 Boston Tea Party (1773)

held their meetings in public, so that all could attend and listen. This helped spread

the word of resistance to ordinary folks, including the illiterate who could not read

pamphlets, newspapers, or petitions. Even as they advocated passive resistance to

the British Parliament through boycotts and petitions, the Sons of Liberty unwit-

tingly helped bring the colonies one step closer to a bid for independence.

—Lorri Brown

Further Reading

Faragher, John Mack, Mari Jo B uhle, Daniel Czitrom, and Susan H. Armitage. Out of

Many: A History of the American People. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentic e Hall, 1995.

Norton, Mary Beth, David M. Katzman, Paul D. Scott, Howard P. Chudacoff, and Thomas

G. Patterson. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Boston: Houghton

Mifﬂin Company, 1994.

USHistory.org. “Sons of Liberty.” http://www.ushis tory.org/Declaration/re lated /sons.htm

(accessed September 23, 2008).

Townshend Acts (1767)

During the 1760s British government ofﬁcials in the American colonies came and

went with regularity. This made it very difﬁcult for Britain to form, let alone

enforce, a consistent American policy. In 1766, a new prime minister replaced

William Pitt, who had been very popula r with colonists. Charles Townshend had

been the chancellor of the exchequer and was a great believer in colonial taxation.

With a high national debt and soaring unemployment, Townshend dec ided that it

was better to please the people of Britain than to worry about colonists, thousands

of miles away. While the largest landowners in Britain had forced a 25 percent tax

cut for themse lves, Towns hend levied a series of taxes on the colonies, which

would ultimately bring them one step closer to revolution and independence.

The Townshend Acts placed a new tax on goods such as tea, paper, lead, and glass.

However, it was placed only on items imported from Great Britain, which directly

contradicted mercantile theory. The Townshend Act also used taxes to pay the sala-

ries of certain royal ofﬁcials in the colonies. This took a great deal of power away

from the colonial assemblies, which could withhold ofﬁcials’ salaries if they did not

like their actions. The Townshend Act also created an American board of customs

commissioners and vice-admiralty courts at Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston.

This angered merchants further, because rigorous enforcement of taxes, which had

been loosely followed, would cut into their proﬁts. As part of the new laws, Town-

shend also suspended the New York legislature for refusing to comply with the

Boston Tea Party (1773) 203