What's In A Name? Tea Party Movement Got It Wrong

Back in 2007 or 2008, I wrote how I was upset with the current Tea Party Movement's (TPM) weak interpretation of History.  The TPM would be better served had they latched onto different special events that more accurately portray their anger, distrust and frustration with the status quo:  Shays' Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebellion (both having libertarian ideals at heart, and both having the word "rebellion" in them, which seems to be popular these days).

I've noticed that within the past year, others have inadvertently jumped on my little bandwagon.  Please note that I am not a member of the TPM, but harbor no ill will toward them.  In fact, I'm elated that people are starting to care about politics again.  My complaint is only with the name.

There are those who would quibble with my reasoning.  What's in a name?  We are describing the spirit of the original tea party, which the TPM encapsulates today!

For years after the destruction of tea in Boston Harbor, no one discussed the event.  It was too radical, and made our forebears uncomfortable.  There was little real pride in what they had done, and certainly no bragging in public houses; what pride there was paled in comparison to the fighting of the Revolution.  Today's TPM is proud.  Attempts at marginalizing this vocal political group failed, and the TPM is mentioned incessantly across the media spectrum.  It will not soon be swept under the rug of ephemera as the original destruction of tea was.

If by "spirit of the original tea party" the TPM means to say that it supports the manipulation of the emotions of the populace by wealthy people with business interests, then yes.  No true libertarian would agree with this, though.  The spirit of Shay's Rebellion shines through.  It began as a local movement of poorly treated war veterans/farmers, who were tired of being taken advantage of by business interests. Samuel Adams (a main instigator of the destruction of tea in Boston) despised this rebellion of commoners, and wrote a Riot Act, which effectively called "forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions."  He also advocated for the suspension of habeas corpus, so that the frustrated farmers and veterans could be kept in jail until this little issue blew over.   The wealthy in our young country couldn't bear indignant poor people complaining about their rights. Granted, these poor couldn't pay their debts and Big Business was confiscating their lands; however, these veterans served unpaid* during the Revolution, so lacked the money to pay their debts when the war concluded (if you're stuck two states away at a military encampment, you're not earning money on your farm).

One of the TPM's favorite quotes is from Thomas Jefferson:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
This quote had nothing to do with the destruction of tea in Boston Harbor; rather, Jefferson wrote that in response to Shays' Rebellion.

Other libertarians may be more inspired by the Whiskey Rebellion (1794), which was caused by the first tax imposed on a domestic product that substantially supported Big Business and hurt local distillers (whether or not there was a conspiracy against small businesses has not been proven).  Significantly, this also led to regular citizens' growing resentment toward an East Coast that simply failed to understand their lifestyle. As historian/author Thomas Slaughter wrote, the people began equating "easterners with wealth, power and absentee landlordism, and to see local enforcers of eastern laws as self-interested lackeys of eastern elites."  Replace "eastern" with "Washington," and you'll notice this is much the language of the TPM today.  Or simply refer to historian Terry Bouton** when he simply calls the Whiskey Rebels “Regulators, citizens fed up with selfish elitist governmental economic and social policies."  Sound familiar?

It is beyond me why a movement that views itself as here-to-stay chose to name themselves after a single night in history that was nearly wiped from public memory shortly after it occurred.  The indignant, fed-up spirit of the TPM movement is pervasive and appears to be lasting.   Is "rebellion" not a better word?

Not to mention if they ditch the name "Tea Party," they won't have to worry about all those "tea bagger" comments.



*Today soldiers freak out and post all over FB if there's even a hint they'll miss one month of pay.  During the Revolutionary War, soldiers commonly weren't paid, and during the winters didn't even have necessary supplies.  It was a different time, I suppose.
**Terry Bouton, “Tying Up the Revolution: Money, Power, and the Regulation in Pennsylvania, 1765-1800” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University, 1996).

Forgetting The Boston Tea Party (in brief)

"Last night, three cargos of Bohea Tea were emptied into the sea. This is the most magnificent moment of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the Patriots that I greatly admire . . . This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I can't but consider it as an epoch of history."

John Adams, in his diary, December 17, 1773

On December 16, 1773, an angry mob fresh from incendiary speeches at the Old South Meeting House marched down to Griffins Wharf at Boston Harbor and witnessed a group of men dressed as Mohawks climb aboard three British ships: the Eleanor, Brig Beaver and the Dartmouth.  Without a sound, the “Indians” dumped three hundred forty-two boxes of valuable tea belonging to the East India Company overboard.[5]  According to both British and American sources, not a single box was overlooked, and the participants, as well as some onlookers, were searched to make certain no person made off with any (at least one person tried).

This destruction of property was a major crime and somewhat discomforting for England; several investigations were made into the matter.[6]  Early the next year an assembly of Loyalists from every town in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, passed a set of resolutions, one of which stated, “That no obedience is due from the province to either, or any part of the acts [of shutting up Boston Port], but that they ought to be rejected as the wicked attempts of an abandoned administration to establish a despotic government.”[7]  However, shortly after the destruction of the tea, non-loyalist inhabitants and Freeholders in Charlestown (outside of Boston) passed a resolution that they would not stand for any tea to be present in their homes, and they proposed burning all East India tea in their market square.[8]  Due to the political and economic turmoil this event created or exacerbated in the colonies, no who participated that night spoke of the event, and only one person was ever convicted of the crime.[9]

The destruction of tea was encouraged, and possibly even organized, by the wealthy smugglers, who stood to lose the most by the British tax on tea in the colonies.  The American people actually benefited by the East India Trading Company's near-monopoly on importation, as it cost them approximately one shilling less from the Company for the same amount of tea.  The smugglers couldn't beat this price and still turn a viable profit.  This threat to put the smugglers out of business was enough to excite them into protest.  True, the few legitimate importers of tea also stood to lose ground, and this was technically "taxation without representation."  However, England felt she was paying for the ongoing protection of her young colony from hostile Amerindian tribes and from the rival European powers also in the Americas.

After the war, and once the United States actually achieved independence along with international recognition, such radical events leading to the Revolution were kept quiet and certainly not celebrated.  This was partly due to embarrassment, but also for fear it would incite further rebellion.  Revolutionary War veterans were ignored, Bunker Hill was leveled, and the precise location for what would later be called the Boston Tea Party was filled in and forgotten.

 “The destruction of the tea in 1773… was virtually lost in the sixty years after the Revolution as the elites who established their cultural domination chose to erase the radical or ‘popular’ side of the Revolution: the ‘mob’ actions, the farmer’s rebellions, the quest for equality.  When the event was recovered in the 1830s, it returned as ‘The Boston Tea Party,’ a name that reduced an act of civil disobedience to a comic, frivolous and safe event.”[10]  For years, many of the participants were unknown, simply because it was not something of which to be proud during its day.  By the time it was finally celebrated and allowed into public memory, most of the original participants had died, and those left failed to remember many of the names of their disguised companions.  Only with new research has this forgotten history and the names of those who lived it come to light.  [11]

Bibliography and Other Sources for Continued Reading

Alfred F. Young, “Revolution in Boston?  Eight Propositions for Public History on the Freedom Trail,” The Public Historian, Vol. 25, No. 2, (Spring 2003), pgs. 17-41.

Alfred F. Young, The Shoemaker and the Tea Party:  Memory and the American Revolution, Beacon Press, 1999.

In the Minds and Hearts of the People: Prologue to the American Revolution, 1760-1774, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger, “Political Mobs and the American Revolution, 1765-1776,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 99, No. 4., 30 August 1955.

Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Boston, 1905, located at the Massachusetts Historical Society of 1154 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, 448-454.

Peggy Mullen, “Steeped in History:  Chest from Boston Tea Party returns to harbor to become centerpiece of new museum,” The Patriot Ledger, Boston, 6 January 2005.

McManus/Peterman Architects, “Boston Tea Party and Ship Museum: Historic Tours of America,” Architectural Plans, 19 May 2004.

“News and Opinion,” Boston News-Letter, 30 December 1773, Issue 3665, pg 2.

Sylvanus Urban, ed., “Account of the Proceedings of the American Colonies since the passing of the Boston Port Bill,” The Gentleman’s Magazine, London, November 1774.

William Price, A new plan of ye great town of Boston in New England in America with the many additionall [sic] buildings & new streets, 1769.

Sir Thomas Hyde Page, A plan of the town of Boston with the entrenchments of His Majesty's forces in 1775, from the observations of Lieut. Page of His Majesty's Corps of Engineers, and from those of other gentlemen, 1777.

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[1] Arthur Meier Schlesinger, “Political Mobs and the American Revolution, 1765-1776,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 99, No. 4., 30 August 1955, pg. 245.

[2] “News and Opinion,” Boston News-Letter, 30 December 1773, Issue 3665, pg 2.

[3] Sylvanus Urban, ed., “Account of the Proceedings of the American Colonies since the passing of the Boston Port Bill,” The Gentleman’s Magazine, London, November 1774, 516.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Alfred F. Young, The Shoemaker and the Tea Party:  Memory and the American Revolution, (Boston:  Beacon Press), 1999.

[6] Alfred F. Young, “Revolution in Boston?  Eight Propositions for Public History on the Freedom Trail,” The Public Historian, Vol. 25, No. 2, Spring 2003, pg. 22.

[7] Alfred F. Young, The Shoemaker and the Tea Party:  Memory and the American Revolution.
Remainder of footnotes inexplicably cut off.  Will remedy before end of day.