Semiquincentennial

Mention Boston to a British subject nowadays; the response will likely be - Aye, that's where they dumped the bloody tea.  Neither the Stamp Act rioting,nor the Boston Massacre nor Paul Revere's ride have quite the notoriety of Samuel Adams' Indian Caper - or Boston Tea Party.

This event was singularly a turning point in colonial resistance to the crown's trade restrictions and taxes.  Governor Hutchinson himself acknowledged that war and separation from Britain was inevitable.

The first tax on tea was imposed by the Townshend Acts of 1767; but this tax was ineffective.  Boycotts by the colonists  prevented taxed tea from being sold; then smuggled tea from Holland  undercut the price of legal, taxed tea.  By 1773 the East India Company was nearly bankrupt with millions of pound of tea moldering in London warehouses. 

The Tea Act  was principally a bailout of the East India Company.  Reducing the price of tea it retained the three-penny tax on tea as before and gave the company a one-shilling-per-pound subsidy on all tea sold in North America.  Consequently, the company could undercut the smuggler and get rid of its surplus inventory profitably. 

Bostonians weren't having it however.  The Tea Act gave a monopoly to certain consignees who were all relatives and cronies of Governor Hutchinson.  Boston merchants were outraged.  If royal officials could do this with tea they could do it with anything else.  No shop owner or merchant would be safe. 

Moreover, the Tea Act was perceived to be a ruse to get the colonists to pay the three-penny tax they had long opposed.  From Faneuil Hall the cry of No tax on Tea! was heard loud and clear.  Ironically, the Tea Act managed to offend just about everyone including many loyalists. 

The consignees were labeled as enemies of the country and hardly anyone, save the consignees and the Governor, wished the tea to be offloaded.  Abigail Adams said it well; The flame is kindled and like lightning it catches from the soul to soul.

    

The Tea Party originated at the Old South Meeting House from which organizers marched to Griffin's Wharf where the three tea ships were docked.  The ships log of the Dartmouth provides this description: 

Between six and seven o'clock this evening came down to the wharf a body of about a thousand people.  Among them were a number dressed and whooping like Indians.  They came on board the ship and after warning myself and the Customs House officer to get out the way the unlaid the hatches and went down to the hold where was 80 whole and 34 half chests of tea which they hoisted on the deck, cut the chests to pieces and hove the tea overboard where it was damaged and lost.

 

Nothing, save the tea, was damaged.  One padlock had to be forced open and was replaced the very next day.

Depend upon it, wrote John Adams, they were no ordinary Mohawks; as the Tea Party was organized well in-advance.  Most of the 120 or so young men and boys had gathered secretly in taverns, houses and warehouses while the crowds were at the Old South Meeting House.  

Once the deed was done the fear of British retaliation was so great that lips were sealed so effectively that many of the perpetrators went to their grave without acknowledging their participation. 

Destroyed were 342 chests, half chests and quarter chests of tea weighing  92,616 pounds - more than 46 tons of tea leaves.  Enough tea to brew 18,523,000 cups!  The East India Company's loss amounted to £9,659, 6 shillings and 4 pence.  About $1.5 million in current dollars.

Rumors spread around town of the taste of fish being altered and the behavior of fish not unlike a that of a nervous overly-caffeinated individual. And since not a soul was willing to talk, Parliament meted out communal punishment on the entire town.  The Boston Port Bill closed the harbor to all vessels, even restricting the ferries, until the townspeople paid for the tea.  The economy of Boston came to a standstill.

The Coercive Acts of 1774 abolished most all of the colony's popularly-elected government, assembly was restricted, trials were moved to England, General Thomas Gage was appointed Governor by King George III and troops could be quartered in colonist's homes against their will.

These Intolerable Acts did not break the colonist's spirit as Parliament had hoped.  Rather, these measures inflamed hostilities ensuring  that people would resist even more strongly; with their lives if it came to that.

And it wasn't long before it came to that.