56. The Boston Tea Party

The first concrete step of the East India Company to invade the American market came at the end of August 1773, and was published in the American press in September. Aiming eventually to construct a factory in Philadelphia and its own warehouse in each of three leading American ports, the company decided to begin by shipping six hundred thousand pounds of tea to a few favored merchants as agents, or consignees, in the four leading ports of America.

The merchants of the four ports quickly mobilized against this threat and were backed by the press and the bulk of the populace. It was clear to the resisters 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. In 1765 the appointed stamp distributors had been “persuaded” by force to resign their posts; now it was the few consignees designated by the company to receive the tea. After securing their resignation, the next step was to prevent the East India tea from landing on American shores. The British government had no idea that the Tea Act would cause any particular stir, much less that violence against its agents, direct or indirect, would be resumed.

Not surprisingly, matters came to a head in Boston. That great center of Anglo-American confrontations faced a British fleet and troops stationed offshore; moreover, it had as governor the flint-hearted Tory Thomas Hutchinson. Opinion had been inflamed against Hutchinson the previous spring when the wily Benjamin Franklin, to ingratiate himself with his employers, the Massachusetts Assembly, secretly sent them old letters of Hutchinson and of his henchman Andrew Oliver expressing Tory views and calling on Britain for tough policies against the colonies. Sam Adams’ publication of the letters in June polarized the silent conflict between Massachusetts and its governor, and provoked him to be more intransigent than ever. Three of the Boston tea 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. Hutchinson’s personal interest in East India tea simply strengthened his Tory resolve to give not an inch to the colonists. Thus, whereas the executive officials of the three other colonies, lacking specific instructions to the contrary, were happy to look the other way while mob pressure was put upon the consignees, Hutchinson resolved to back the consignees to the hilt.

On November 3 a Boston mob gathered at the Liberty Tree to witness an expected resignation by the consignees. Thwarted by their refusal, the mob stormed the store of Richard Clarke (Hutchinson’s nephew) and was only driven off after a prolonged struggle by a group of friends of the consignees. Two days later, on November 5 and 6, a Boston Town Meeting was assembled and presided over by John Hancock. The meeting unanimously adopted resolutions demanding that no merchants import any British tea, and appointed a committee including such radical leaders as Sam Adams, William Molineux, and Dr. Joseph Warren to pressure the resignation of the consignees. But the consignees were emboldened by Hutchinson’s support and repeatedly refused to resign. When the tea arrived, they, along with the harassed customs commissioners, took secure refuge with the British troops at Castle William.

With the consignees refusing to resign, stopping the landing of the tea became ever more important to the Americans. Transcending the bounds of Boston, Sam Adams called a joint meeting of the committees of correspondence of the towns of Boston, Roxbury, Brookline, and Cambridge for November 22. The meeting resolved unanimously to prevent the landing and sale of the tea, and the Boston committee was instructed to raise the town to “immediate and effectual opposition.” The Boston Town Meeting, furthermore, was now superseded by the unofficial, flexible, and more powerful revolutionary institution: the “body meeting”—a recurring mass meeting of the body of all inhabitants of Boston and Roxbury, Brookline, and Cambridge.

The first tea ship, the Dartmouth, arrived at Boston harbor on November 27; two other East India tea ships followed a few days later. Promptly, two great mass meetings of the “body” met through November 29 and 30, presided over by the eminent merchant Jonathan Williams. The mass meeting adopted unanimously the resolution of Sam Adams that the tea be shipped back by the East India Company and that no duty whatever be paid on the tea. The latter demand represented an advance in American goals. Hutchinson sent the sheriff to disperse the “unlawful” assemblage, but he was hissed down by the meeting. While the consignees discreetly repaired to Castle William, Hutchinson responded to the popular demand by refusing the ships permission to leave the harbor unless duty were paid. Thus the East India ships were caught between two swords.

On receiving word of the situation from their committees of correspondence, town after town in Massachusetts resolved to back the Boston mass meeting to the hilt, including Cambridge, Brookline, Roxbury, Charlestown, Marblehead, Plymouth, Malden, Gloucester, Lexington, Groton, Newburyport, Lynn, and Medford.

The deadlock at the port could not continue indefinitely. The tea ships’ entry into port made the vessels liable to seizure by the customs officers after twenty days for nonpayment of duty. The rebels were afraid that once the customs officers had the tea, they could land it, sell it secretly to the people, and use the money to pay the salaries of the appointed officials of the colony.

Meanwhile, the Boston Committee of Correspondence provided a military guard on the tea ships to make sure that the tea was not landed in secret. Clearly the tea must be destroyed before its confiscation by customs, and the period of grace for the Dartmouth was up on December 17. The last chance for the colonists was therefore on December 16. That day, the 16th, a great mass meeting of the “body” of eight thousand people learned of Hutchinson’s refusal to allow the Dartmouth to sail home. The meeting heard the news with great restiveness and anger. Several angry speeches ensued. The prominent merchant John Rowe asked meaningfully: “Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?” Finally, Sam Adams arose to give the signal that angry words must now give way to deeds: “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.” Thereupon, a remarkably disciplined ginger group of Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk Indians, rushed to Griffin’s Wharf, boarded all three tea ships, and spent several hours of the night dumping every bit of East India tea into Boston harbor. No other property and no person was at all harmed. This was the famous and electrifying Boston Tea Party. The heroic band of “Mohawks” that defied British armed might numbered over a hundred and represented a cross section of the populace: from leading merchants to farmers, carpenters, and blacksmiths. The band also probably included such prominent radical leaders as the merchants William Molineux and Henry Bass, the engraver Paul Revere, the young clerk and writer James Swan, the old South End gang leader Ebenezer Mackintosh, and the ardent radical theoretician Dr. Thomas Young, who had previously made the first public suggestion for dumping the tea overboard.

The “Mohawks” had done their work well, and Hutchinson soon found that no Americans, whether the Council, grand juries, justices of the peace, sheriffs, or the militia, would help to track down the culprits. Only one witness to the Tea Party was willing to testify—but only if the trial took place in England. John Adams hailed the Tea Party as “an epoch in history” and as “the most magnificent movement” of all the actions of the “patriot” forces before the outbreak of the Revolution.

Many Massachusetts towns leaped to the support of the Tea Party. Many were sufficiently radicalized by the occasion to deny Parliament’s rights to legislate for and to tax the colonies, and to pay for the salaries of colonial officials. These included the towns of Hadley, Braintree, Sheffield, Andover, and Worcester. On the other hand, a few towns were frightened by the radical deed and dissolved their committees of correspondence.