Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773, was the overt action that sparked a revolution in America. When approximately one hundred ‘patriots’ disguised as Native Americans, catapulting Smuggler John Hancock, Failed Brewer Samuel Adams, and Silversmith Paul Reverie into the annuals of legend, dumped sack upon sack of East India tea into Boston’s murky waters, one would think they had a pretty good reason. The general consensus learned in school placed the blame solely on England’s shoulders. Lords and Monarchs tucked away in cozy manors had burdened the colonists with massive taxes on every walk of life. Americans suffered severe economic grief by having to pay outlandish prices for goods which could be gotten for far less in England. And on top of that, Great Britain had a deaf ear to colonialists concerns; Americans had no say in the matter. No wonder Bostonians rounded up every tomahawk they could find and surged aboard ship to get rid of all that cursed high priced tea.
Only problem, by the time the tea tax rolled around, it was the only tax left that was levied on Americans; the others had bitten the dust – wiped away by Parliament after the colonists raised holy hell. Could it have been that those Lords had listened to American gripes and gotten rid of that nasty Stamp Act among others. But then there’s that outlandish price for tea that was forced down the colonists’ throats. But what if all that high priced tea wasn’t so high priced? The fact was that the same tea, even after an export tax was levied on tea shipped directly to America, cost far less in the colonies than the streets of London, or anywhere else in England. The small tax tagged onto tea that ended up in North America made no dent whatsoever in what Americans paid. They still got an incredible bargain. If you were to ask the opinion of any Englishman at the time strolling Coventry Garden what he or she thought, they’d answer straight off that the Americans were getting away with bloody murder.
So why chop away when the reason for doing so was perhaps cloudy at best? Why all the fuss? Perhaps it had to do with principal? And maybe, just maybe, all those privileged white wealthy men who made a fortune while running up large debts to English Banks saw a way out. All it would take is one tiny revolution and all that debt would be wiped clean. Just ask John Hancock – if you could; but getting back to tea.
Seems doing away with all the taxes on Americans, while taxing English soil citizens pissed off King George III. And why not? He saw the colonists reaping the benefits of living within England’s economic and military protective umbrella, without the financial responsibility that comes with it. Also, England ran up a tremendous debt fighting the Seven Years War (French and Indian War in America), paying out a fortune and more in troop transports and equipment to the colonies. And the whole damn thing started in North America with none other than militiaman Colonel George Washington wiping out some French soldiers on a peaceful mission. Shouldn’t those bloody Americans pay something towards settling that debt? The King and many of his friends in the House of Lords had a rude awakening. Reports filtered back to London that their custom agents across the ocean were being tarred and feathered; Americans did not want to pay their fair share of taxes – not on stamps, not on iron, not on imports – not on anything. But George had to do something to save face. That’s where tea came in.
At the dawn of the American rebellion to Mother England, the East India Company, for whom tea was a stable in trade, faced financial ruin. They needed to retain a monopoly on American customers to stay afloat. English banks and financial institutions took note. They used their influence to export tea to the colonies with remission of ordinary British duties. In other words they wanted the East India tea to be cheap, far cheaper in North America than in the British Isles, so Americans would buy a ton and more of it. Parliament fell in line by enacting a statute on May 10, 1773, that did just that. And here’s where a stubborn monarch came in.
After all those ‘obnoxious taxes’ on the Americans had to be canned, King George III insisted on maintaining ‘a peppercorn of principal.’ He, along with traditionalist elements in Parliament feared that failure to collect a token duty tax would weaken England’s power to tax in the future. “There must always be one tax to keep up the right to do so,” was the royal argument. And tea became that ‘one tax’, over strenuous objections by some in Parliament. The king’s insistence led to the imposition of an import duty of three pence per pound of tea taken directly to North America. The slight increase on tea imports did almost nothing to affect the cost to customers in America as it bypassed British middle men, hence eliminating their profits. Therefore the tea that ultimately was dumped in Boston’s harbor had been placed on the market well below the same tea purchased by His Majesty’s subjects in Great Britain – the tax was basically symbolic – nothing more. But for the ‘hotheads’ and ‘saber rattlers’ of the Sons of Liberty, that did not matter; a tax was a tax and they wanted none of it. Tea became the ‘very principal of taxation’ by which the Sons of Liberty violently objected. Samuel Adams cried louder than all others that taxation without representation was tyranny, never mind that cooler minds in Parliament had reached out to the colonial elite, offering some type of representation in governmental England, but they were ignored. Hell, compromise might get in the way of all that propaganda and passion that was stirring up the masses, ruining the promise of such a neat, and for the most wealthy, profitable rebellion.
And there you have it. The Boston Tea Party sits proudly in our school text books. Not for economic reasons. Not because England refused to listen to American’s complaints, but for principal – both patriots and a stubborn monarch. But one can’t help but imagine… what if King George III picked some other commodity besides tea to maintain his principal of ‘one tax to keep up the right.’ What if he had chosen beer?
Can you picture all those patriots in ‘Indian garb’ breaking into casks and kegs and then dumping all that wonderful grog into the harbor? One could wager that a considerable amount would have been dumped into their stomachs instead. Or kegs secretly slipped back to shore for storage. Had that been the case we may be celebrating not The Boston Tea Party, but The Boston Beer Party. Now wouldn’t that have enlivened classroom discussions? And what of the more recent ‘Tea Party’ movement that gave rise to the far right principals dominating our politics? Perhaps some would agree they would have had to garnish the more appropriate and realistic title of ‘Beer Party.’ At least that would help explain all the rhetoric. But then we’d all have to take ourselves seriously.
For Further Reading on the Boston Tea Party and Beginnings of the American Revolution, check out these Free Reviews on Amazon
Josiah is Book 1 in the American Revolutionary War “Shades of Liberty” Series about African Americans who fought in the war.
Also of similar interest on Revolutionary War Journal
Colonial Artisan “Mechanicks”: Middle Class Muscle Behind the American Revolution