WEBVTT NOTE 56. The Boston Tea Party 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.080 Volume 3, Chapter 56, The Boston Tea Party 2 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:11.280 The first concrete step of the East India Company to invade the American market came 3 00:00:11.280 --> 00:00:18.560 at the end of August 1773 and was published in the American press in September. 4 00:00:18.560 --> 00:00:24.040 Aiming eventually to construct a factory in Philadelphia and its own warehouse in each 5 00:00:24.040 --> 00:00:40.040 In the reach of three leading American ports, the company decided to begin by shipping 600,000 pounds of tea to a few favored merchants as agents or consignees in the four leading ports of America. 6 00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:49.040 The merchants of the four ports quickly mobilized against this threat and were backed by the press in the bulk of the populace. 7 00:00:49.040 --> 00:01:06.040 It was clear to the resistors that the best way to meet the tea invasion was in the same way that the hated stamps had been repulsed by revolutionary mob violence or the threat thereof against the few favored distributors of the commodity. 8 00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:14.040 In 1765 the appointed stamp distributors had been persuaded by force to resign their post. 9 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:20.040 Now it was the few consignees designated by the company to receive the tea. 10 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:28.040 After securing their resignation, the next step was to prevent the East India tea from landing on American shores. 11 00:01:28.040 --> 00:01:35.040 The British government had no idea that the Tea Act would cause any particular stir, 12 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:42.040 much less that violence against its agents, direct or indirect, would be resumed. 13 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:49.320 Not surprisingly, matters came to a head in Boston. That great center of Anglo-American 14 00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:57.000 confrontations faced a British fleet and troops stationed offshore. Moreover, it had as governor 15 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:03.720 the flint-hearted Tory Thomas Hutchinson. Opinion had been inflamed against Hutchinson 16 00:02:03.720 --> 00:02:09.800 the previous spring when the wily Benjamin Franklin, to ingratiate himself with his employers, 17 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:15.920 of the Massachusetts Assembly secretly sent them old letters of Hutchinson and of his 18 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:23.040 henchmen, Andrew Oliver, expressing Tory views and calling on Britain for tough policies 19 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:30.800 against the colonies. Sam Adams' publication of the letters in June polarized the silent 20 00:02:30.800 --> 00:02:37.360 conflict between Massachusetts and its governor and provoked him to be more intransigent than 21 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:52.360 Three of the Boston T consignees, by no coincidence, turned out to be two sons and a nephew of Hutchinson, in a firm of which the governor himself was a member and probable partner. 22 00:02:52.360 --> 00:03:01.360 Hutchinson's personal interest in East India T simply strengthened his Tory resolve to give not an inch to the colonist. 23 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:37.600 The mob stormed the store of Richard Clark, Hutchinson's nephew, and was only driven 24 00:03:37.600 --> 00:03:42.960 off after prolonged struggle by a group of friends of the consignees. 25 00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:49.480 Two days later, on November 5 and 6, a Boston town meeting was assembled and presided over 26 00:03:49.480 --> 00:03:51.520 by John Hancock. 27 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:58.280 The meeting unanimously adopted resolutions demanding that no merchants import any British 28 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:05.800 and appointed a committee including such radical leaders as Sam Adams, William Molyneux and 29 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:12.560 Dr. Joseph Warren to pressure the resignation of the consignees. But the consignees were 30 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:20.560 emboldened by Hutchinson's support and repeatedly refused to resign. When the tea arrived, they, 31 00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:26.360 along with the harassed customs commissioners, took secure refuge with the British troops 32 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:56.360 at the University of New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New York, New 33 00:04:56.360 --> 00:05:02.400 The committee was instructed to raise the town to immediate and effectual opposition. 34 00:05:02.400 --> 00:05:08.040 The Boston town meeting, furthermore, was now superseded by the unofficial, flexible 35 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:15.240 and more powerful revolutionary institution, the Body Meeting, a recurring mass meeting 36 00:05:15.240 --> 00:05:22.640 of the body of all inhabitants of Boston and Roxbury, Brookline and Cambridge. 37 00:05:22.640 --> 00:05:29.360 The first tea ship, the Dartmouth, arrived at Boston Harbor on November 27. 38 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:33.400 Two other East India tea ships followed a few days later. 39 00:05:33.400 --> 00:05:41.480 Promptly, two great mass meetings of the body met through November 29 and 30, presided over 40 00:05:41.480 --> 00:05:45.220 by the eminent merchant, Jonathan Williams. 41 00:05:45.220 --> 00:05:51.320 The mass meeting adopted unanimously the resolution of Sam Adams that the tea be shipped back 42 00:05:51.320 --> 00:05:58.920 by the East India Company and that no duty whatever be paid on the T. The latter demand 43 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:04.840 represented an advance in American goals. Hutchinson sent the sheriff to disperse the 44 00:06:04.840 --> 00:06:11.320 unlawful assemblage, but he was hissed down by the meeting. While the consignees discreetly 45 00:06:11.320 --> 00:06:17.480 repaired to Casa William, Hutchinson responded to the popular demand by refusing the ship's 46 00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:23.560 Permission to leave the harbor unless duty were paid. Thus, the East India ships were 47 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:29.240 caught between two swords. On receiving word of the situation from their committees of 48 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:35.720 correspondence, town after town in Massachusetts resolved to back the Boston mass meeting to 49 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:42.760 the hilt, including Cambridge, Brookline, Roxbury, Charlestown, Marblehead, Plymouth, 50 00:06:42.760 --> 00:06:49.800 Maldon, Gloucester, Lexington, Groton, Newbury Port, Lynn and Medford 51 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:56.200 The deadlock at the port could not continue indefinitely. The tea ships at entry and port 52 00:06:56.200 --> 00:07:02.280 made the vessels liable to seizure by the customs officers after twenty days for non-payment 53 00:07:02.280 --> 00:07:08.200 of duty. The rebels were afraid that once the customs officers had the tea, they could 54 00:07:08.200 --> 00:07:13.880 land it, sell it secretly to the people, and use the money to pay the salaries of the appointed 55 00:07:13.880 --> 00:07:20.240 officials of the colony. Meanwhile, the Boston Committee of Correspondence provided a military 56 00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:26.800 guard on the tea ships to make sure that the tea was not landed in secret. Clearly the 57 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:32.000 tea must be destroyed before its confiscation by customs, and the period of grace for the 58 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:37.840 The Dartmouth was up on December 17. The last chance for the colonists was therefore 59 00:07:37.840 --> 00:07:47.060 on December 16. That day, the 16th, a great mass meeting of the body of 8,000 people learned 60 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:53.480 of Hutchinson's refusal to allow the Dartmouth to sail home. The meeting heard the news with 61 00:07:53.480 --> 00:08:00.880 great restiveness and anger. Several angry speeches ensued. The prominent merchant John 62 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:08.540 John Rowe asked meaningfully, Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water? Finally Sam 63 00:08:08.540 --> 00:08:14.820 Adams arose to give the signal that angry words must now give way to deeds. This meeting 64 00:08:14.820 --> 00:08:21.940 can do nothing more to save the country. Thereupon a remarkably disciplined ginger group of sons 65 00:08:21.940 --> 00:08:29.320 of liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians rushed to Griffin's wharf, boarded all three tea 66 00:08:29.320 --> 00:08:55.240 The heroic band of mohawks that defied British armed might numbered over a hundred and represented 67 00:08:55.240 --> 00:09:02.680 from leading merchants to farmers, carpenters and blacksmiths. 68 00:09:02.680 --> 00:09:09.200 The band also probably included such prominent radical leaders as the merchants William Molino 69 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:15.480 and Henry Bass, the engraver Paul Revere, the young clerk and writer James Swan, the 70 00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:22.760 old South End gang leader Ebenezer McIntosh and the ardent radical theoretician Dr. Thomas 71 00:09:22.760 --> 00:09:34.940 The Mohawks had done their work well, and Hutchinson soon found that no Americans, whether 72 00:09:34.940 --> 00:09:41.480 the council, grand juries, justices of the peace, sheriffs, or the militia, would help 73 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:44.120 to track down the culprits. 74 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:49.320 Only one witness to the tea party was willing to testify, but only if the trial took place 75 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:51.120 in England. 76 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:57.440 John Adams hailed the Tea Party as an epic in history and as the most magnificent moment 77 00:09:57.440 --> 00:10:03.360 of all the actions of the patriot forces before the outbreak of the revolution. 78 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:09.840 Many Massachusetts towns leaped to the support of the Tea Party. Many were sufficiently radicalized 79 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:16.840 by the occasion to deny Parliament's rights to legislate for and to tax the colonies and 80 00:10:16.840 --> 00:10:22.760 And to pay for the salaries of colonial officials. These included the towns of Hadley, Braintree, 81 00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:29.560 Sheffield, Andover and Worcester. On the other hand, a few towns were frightened by the radical 82 00:10:29.560 --> 00:10:33.560 and dissolved their Committees of Correspondence.