Volume 3, Chapter 42, Non-Importation in the South
Undoubtedly, the coercion against Boston helped to expand the non-importation movement, and
it had, by spring of 1769, induced the merchants of the three great American ports to adopt
such boycotts.
From New England, New York and Philadelphia, the boycott movement now spread to other colonies.
However, the situation in the South, especially the tobacco colonies of the Upper South, was
more difficult than in the North. In those southern colonies, commerce was conducted mainly
by English and Scottish factors or independent merchants. These were not likely to turn against
Great Britain and their own possibilities for trade. In the South, therefore, there
There was a tendency to stress non-consumption agreements, as in the early New England boycotts,
and thus to go over the heads of the merchants to the people.
The boycott movement was led by the leading consumers in each province, the large tobacco
planters.
In Virginia, organizers of the boycott were the large planters George Washington and George
George Mason, joined by Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson,
and Richard Henry Lee. When the House of Burgesses met in May 1769, it proclaimed that it alone
had the right to levy taxes in Virginia, and attacked Britain's reaction to the Massachusetts
circular letter. It also denounced a British threat to haul Massachusetts patriot leaders
When the Virginia governor dissolved the House in reaction to these resolutions, the members met privately on May 18 and formed the Virginia Association, pledging non-importation and non-consumption of all British goods subject to a duty, with the exception of paper as well as of a long list of imported fineries.
The agreement was devised by Mason in Washington, and Randolph was selected chairman of the association.
Back in their home counties, the planters persuaded many of the public to sign the agreement.
In neighboring Maryland, the merchants of Baltimore joined their confreres in Philadelphia to adopt a non-importation agreement at the end of March.
Outside Baltimore, however, the traders and factors refused to join,
and so planters led the way in bypassing them, signing a non-importation agreement in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County on May 23rd.
Most Maryland counties soon followed suit, and this led to the Annapolis leaders calling a meeting of merchants, traders, freeholders, mechanics and other inhabitants for June 22.
The Maryland Association added more luxuries to its taboo list. It also went beyond previous agreements by pledging a business boycott of all persons not adhering to the agreement. Such were to be treated with contempt as enemies to the liberties of America.
The largest mercantile town in the south was Charleston, South Carolina. But Charleston
lagged badly in joining the boycott movement. The mechanics, artisans of Charleston and
the planters of the province, favored resistance, but the merchants proved apathetic. Receipt
of the circular letter of the Boston merchants in the fall of 1768 galvanized the South Carolinians
and the Charleston Artisans won seats in the assembly on the cry of supporting the glorious
92 anti-rescinders of Massachusetts. The leader of the South Carolina boycott movement was
the noted merchant planter Christopher Gadson, who welded the planter-artisan alliance.
Spokesman for the alliance was the Charleston South Carolina Gazette, printed by Peter Timothy.
In early February, Timothy urged non-consumption of imports on the people of the province,
and printed letters by planters urging such a boycott as a means of bypassing the reluctant
merchants. Charleston artisans met around the Liberty
Tree in March, calling for non-importation. By mid-June 1769, societies of gentlemen had
that sprung up in Charleston, pledging themselves to buy no British goods that could be manufactured
in America. Thus, rich and poor united in favor of resistance. Still, despite the army
in Boston and the widespread non-importation movement throughout the colonies, the Charleston
merchants hung back and did nothing. The time had come for sterner measures by the popular
Accordingly, Christopher Gadsen kicked off a new phase on July 22 with a denunciation
in the Gazette of importers of British goods, most of them newcomers in the colony.
Gadsen and Timothy pushed for a formal non-consumption agreement, one pledging an all-out boycott
of all imports from Great Britain until the Townsend Acts were repealed.
A boycott was also threatened of all citizens who did not sign the agreement within a month.
Heading the struggle for a boycott was Christopher Gadsden.
Accused of advocating independence for the American colonies, Gadsden replied that independence
would be bad, but added that losing their rights and liberties would be far worse.
Aiding Gadsden in the fight were his old colleague at the Stamp Act Congress, Thomas Lynch,
and the radical planter, John McKenzie.
The original non-consumption agreement was also signed by 25 members of the South Carolina
Assembly.
On July 3 and 4, 230 mechanics of Charleston met under the Liberty Tree and signed the
Agreement, and even strengthened it by adding a pledge to buy no British goods from transient
traders and to import no slaves from British traders. Some of the mechanics also proceeded
to pledge to deal only with merchants who signed the non-importation agreement. The
merchants railed at these agreements as worse than those of a despot, ignoring the vital
It is a real distinction that such boycotts were purely voluntary decisions, rather than coercive acts backed by the state or by any other force.
Reluctantly, the merchants were dragged to the radical position.
At first, on July 7, they signed their own weaker non-importation agreement,
Limiting the boycott to the year 1770 and permitting certain articles to be imported.
Further friction and severe pressure finally brought the merchants around. A joint committee
of merchants, planters and artisans drafted a uniform agreement and on July 22 Christopher
Gadsden triumphantly read this final agreement to a great audience under the Liberty Tree.
Over 400 signers in this General Meeting of Inhabitants formed an association headed by
a 39-man General Committee of 13 representatives, each of merchants, planters and artisans,
to supervise the workings of the agreement.
The joint agreement was largely a victory for the radicals.
It was agreed to import no goods from Britain, to maintain previous prices, to buy no imports
from transient merchants or negro slaves for a year's time. Any non-signing South Carolinian
would be boycotted, and any violator was understandably to be contemptuously advertised as being inimical
to American rights. Of particular importance was the pledge to continue the boycott not
not only until the duties were repealed, as was usual, but also until repeal of the entire
Townsend Act structure, including the Customs Board and the new powers of the Vice Admiralty
Courts.
Most enthusiastic of the advocates were the artisans, who, it must be noted, had a distinct
economic interest in non-importation.
As local manufacturers of domestic products, they were the ones who stood to gain most
from the patriotic boycott banning the products of their British competitors.
Georgia suffered from the same occupational split on the Townsend measures as did her
sister Plantation Colony.
But a letter from the South Carolinians galvanized fraternal feelings in Georgia, and the radical
Amicable Society met at Liberty Hall, Savannah, and called a meeting of inhabitants.
The timorous merchants of Savannah tried to head off the association movement by proposing a weak
substitute of their own, an agreement to boycott imports of only the dutyed articles.
But the mass meeting of September 19 followed the South Carolina principles closely,
and overruled the merchants without even a pretense of gaining the merchants' approval.
North Carolina was still a holdout, with the merchants the main obstructive force, but
the dam broke when Cornelius Harnett led the Sons of Liberty of Wilmington in Brunswick
into non-importation resolutions at the end of September 1769. A province-wide association
The Association emerged after the manner of the Virginia Association a half year earlier.
The North Carolina Assembly adopted the Virginia resolutions on importation, and was promptly
dissolved by Governor Tryon.
The Assemblymen quickly met as private citizens, and on November 7, 1769, drew up an Association
for Non-Importation.
The agreement was much like Virginia's. Violators, furthermore, were to be treated with the utmost contempt.