ALL
THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR
In 1767, the British Parliament passed the i nramous
act: imposing duties on tea and other commodities
imported by the American coionists. The colonists
resisted by smuggling in tea from Holland. Although
the other duties were repealed in 1770, the one on
tea remained, so the colonists continued resorting
to this illegal source.
By 1773 the British East India Company, already in
financial trouble J for internal reasons, had a surplus
of 17 million pounds of tea in danger of going stale.
So Parliament wrote off the company's debts, gave
it a loan, and granted it a monopoly in the colonies
through its chosen agents This drove other American
sellers into the legions of disgruntled citizens.
The tax of three pence per pound was modest, andj
added little to Britain's revenues. What rankled was
the idea. The tea tax was symbolic of many other grievances,
and "No taxation without representation"
became a rallying cry.
The anger erupted in the Boston Tea Party on December
16, 1773. Too little has been said about the role
of the colonial women the event The East India Company,
now underselling the smuggler had expected the colonial
women to go for their tea. But the insult of sent
stale leaves and taxed for them was the proverbial
last straw on top of already high feeling. Pledging
to use no tea at home or to boycott completely, the
women held meetings and initiated petitions. Their
aim was to prevent the tea from being unloaded so
that the duty would be paid.
The women's action was not confined merely to the
Boston area. women of Edenton, North Carolina, for
example, in a published in a Eondon paper, vowed not
to conform to the custom of drinking tea, until such
time as all Acts which tend to enslave our native
country shall be repealed."
On December 16 after a meeting attended by 5,000,
fifty men disguised as Indians and armed with hatchets
and pistols attacked the three tea ships anchored
at Boston. They broke open and dumped into the harbor
the East India Company's entire Boston consignment,
342 chests valued at 10,000 pounds sterling. Patriotic
anti-tea incidents took place in many parts of the
colonies.
By the time the revolution began, most Americans had
renounced tea drinking, for a time at least. The tax
rankled even after the revolutionary victory. Witness
these gloating comments by the poet Philip Freneau
for the 1784 departure of the Ewpress of Chum, the
first ship to China from the new United States:
She now her eager course explores, And soon shall
greet Chinesian shores, From thence their fragrant
TEAS to bring Without the leave of Britain's king
. . .
|
