Exploring Pre-Revolution Taxation Cartoons | BRIdge to the Past: Art Across U.S. History

0:05 Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Bridge to the Past, where we walk you through important visuals that help tell the story of American history. I’m your host, Mary Patterson, and I’m really excited to be back with you for this episode because you are getting a two for one special. Not only are we going to be looking at two historic images, but you have two BRI staff members guiding you through this visual journey.

0:28 So I’m excited to introduce you to my colleague, Joshua Schmid. Hey Josh. Hey Mary. It’s great to be here with you. Yeah, I’m really excited that you’re here because in today’s episode, we’re really going to be keeping the idea of perspective or point of view in the back of our head. So just the idea that different people can interpret the same event or the same thing in different ways.

0:52 And there are lots of things that can color your perspective or your point of view, like the time in which you’re living, where you live, your age, your family, your religion, your education, all these things sort of play into it. So we’re going to try to keep those things in mind as we look at our images. So today, as I said, we are going to look at two images coming from the same period in time and dealing

1:16 with the same topic, but they are from two different perspectives. So without further ado, here we go. Taxation without representation, American versus British perspectives. All right, so here is our first image. And if you remember from our last episode, we said the first thing that you should always do when you encounter an image is

1:41 to just look and observe and take those observations and try to make questions. So I see I have a title stamp master in effigy, and this is from 1765. Now, even just looking at the title, I’m not sure what a stamp master is, but it sounds pretty cool. And I’m not really sure what an effigy is. So those might be two questions right off the bat before I even look at the image.

2:05 And if I’m looking at the image, I noticed that it’s black and white. It’s not super high quality, but I can tell there’s a large group of it looks like just men from the way they’re dressed. They have sort of britches and coats on, and they’re outside, looks like in the street. And there’s a crowd of them and they’re waving hats, and there’s a guy on a pole.

2:29 So who is this guy and why is he on a pole? And are the spectators, like, are they cheering him? Are they raising him in the air? Are they mad at him? I don’t really know what’s going on there. And it also looks like there is a coffin in the left side of the screen. So I’m wondering, is this a funeral?

2:50 Like, why would a coffin be there? But usually funerals, I don’t know, I always think of them. Again, my perspective is that they’re sort of quiet and solemn, and this doesn’t really look like that. So I made some observations, and I definitely have some questions, like what is a stamp master and what is an effigy? And then, what’s going on with this crowd? So what is this occasion?

3:10 Who’s on the pole? Are they happy? Are they upset? And again, what’s going on with the coffin? Did somebody die? I don’t know. So I have all these questions from looking at this image, and I also know that I really need some more context to interpret this image. So, Josh, here’s where I’m hoping that you can really help me out here.

3:31 Yeah, so, just a little background. The French and Indian War ended in 1763, and the British and the colonists fought together side by side. And while they won the war, they also ended up with a lot of debt.

3:54 And so Parliament, in response to that debt, decides to raise revenue. And one of the acts that they pass in 1765 is called the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was controversial from the beginning because it violated,

4:18 from the columnist perspective, the British common law tradition of the colonists being able to tax themselves directly. So while the British had taxed things like goods and things like that,

4:38 they had never directly imposed a tax on the call. And the Stamp Act did this. It stated that any paper good playing cards, newspapers, wills, anything with paper on it basically needed a stamp on it. And in order to get that stamp, you need to pay a tax.

5:01 So the columnists, for a variety of reasons, were very unhappy with this. They had both constitutional issues with it, as I mentioned, with the tax history of Britain, but also just practical reasons. This was for many, especially the lower class, in unbearable tax.

5:25 So I think we can start to get a picture of what’s going on here. So a stamp master, as mentioned in the cartoon, was a British appointed official in charge of collecting the stamp tax. And in effigy was kind of a symbolic figure of a hated

5:52 person, usually destroyed or paraded around in an act of disapproval that was common throughout history, but it was especially used during this time period in the American colonies to showcase disapproval with British authority.

6:16 Okay, so this guy on the pole is the stamp master. He’s the guy that would collect the taxes on all of these paper goods. So anything with paper and again, in the 1760s, everything important is on paper. There’s no such thing as computer screens and things like that. People aren’t going paperless. So he’s the guy he had to pay.

6:36 He’s not too popular, and it’s his effigy, his likeness that’s up on this pole because he has hated they don’t like this guy starting to make sense. And the coffin, then. So you mentioned this idea of common law or this idea that there’s always been this tradition of having a voice in what happens to you.

6:57 So having taxation with representation. But it sounds like the Stamp Act is different and the colonists weren’t getting that. So perhaps the coffin is, I don’t know, maybe it’s liberty, maybe it’s common law. Something has died. Right? Yeah. So there’s a great anecdote throughout

7:20 this entire time period where some colonists I think this actually happened in a couple of areas where colonists staged mock funerals for liberty writ large, like the concept of liberty, and they paraded around a coffin

7:41 with liberty in it because it had died with the passage of the Stamp Act. So my guess is that that’s a reference to this here in this cartoon. Okay, so now things are starting to make sense. So that is actually what is happening here. So we see the giveaway here on this particular image.

8:01 It says New Hampshire at the top. So this is from the colonial perspective. This appeared in a newspaper in New Hampshire. And the day that the Stamp Act went into effect in Portsmouth, which from its name Portsmouth, right. Very important town for trade. At the mouth of the river, they staged a mock funeral. So that’s what’s going on here. So this is a print that’s kind of sympathetic to the colonist perspective

8:24 that this Stamp Act is really hated because it’s a funeral. And they’re trying that you’re clearly expressing displeasure with the Stamp Master. And scenes like this, like you said, are happening throughout the colonies. So it’s not just in New Hampshire, it’s not just in Boston, but throughout the 13 colonies. Colonists are lighting bonfires, they’re burning effigies of these stamp

8:48 masters, they’re attacking homes and properties of Crown officials. So they’re clearly expressing their displeasure. And what ends up happening because of all of these protests is that a Stamp Act Congress is called in New York City, and at that Congress, it’s decided we’re just going to boycott. So we’re not going to buy anything that needs a stamp.

9:09 So this would be a pretty big deal because you said this is on everything containing paper. So Almanacs, wills, even dice, playing cards, so they’re going to avoid having to pay the tax. And this is also going to lead to British merchants feeling the pinch, like, hey, I’m not getting my money here,

9:30 they’re not buying my paper, they’re not buying my cards, whatever. So Parliament will rescind. They take away the Stamp Act. But, and I love this, the very same day, Parliament passes the Declaratory Act, which says that it has the right to legislate for the colonies, quote, in all cases whatsoever.

9:50 So it’s almost like I’m imagining Parliament saying, fine, we’ll take the Stamp Act away. You’re so upset about it. But there was nothing wrong with it to begin with. So it’s almost like, did this fix things? Are things going to get better? I don’t know. But that brings us to our second source, the Bostonians Paying, the Excise Man, or Tarring and Feathering.

10:15 So, Josh, what do you think? What do you observe when you look at this? Yeah, so at first glance, it looks like we have a couple of groups of people doing very different things. It looks like we have this group of rather nefarious looking men pouring something down the throat of another man.

10:43 And then in the background, we have a group of other men dumping something off the side of a boat. And then we also have a Liberty Tree, which I’m not sure what that would be, with a noose hung on it. And there’s a piece of paper nailed

11:05 to that tree that says Stamp Act, but it’s upside down. And then in the foreground we also have it looks like a cap and a bucket also sitting there. So I’d assume that’s also important. And this cartoon is labeled the Bostonian’s Pain.

11:26 The Excise Man. So maybe we can if we give some context, we can figure out what’s going on here. Yeah. So again, when we are looking and we’re thinking about historical images, this is pre Instagram, we’re always taking pictures. We have so many pictures on our phones all the time.

11:47 They didn’t have any of that technology. So to have a picture and to reproduce a picture, everything in there is very purposely done. So that cap isn’t just randomly there. It must mean something. So let’s try to get some context to answer some of these questions. So this source, it’s nine years?

12:08 Eight, nine years prior to after our previous source. So the Stamp Act has been repealed. So when you see the Stamp Act upside down on that Liberty tree, so that has been taken away. But the British Parliament has passed other acts that lead to taxes on the colonies. Remember that declaratory act? They said, taking away your Stamp Act, but we’re still going to tax you.

12:30 So there were the Townshend Acts and then the Tea Act was passed in 1773. So this is a tax on Tea. And like the Stamp Act, we have this precedent of colonial resistance in opposition to these taxes, which, from their perspective, they don’t have a voice in Parliament. They’re not electing someone and sending them over to London to meet.

12:51 So they object based on their traditions as Englishmen to these taxes. So the colonists, they successfully protested and put pressure on Parliament before to pull the Stamp Act away. So this sort of resistance is just sort of intensifying. And tarring and feathering i really pretty if you say that,

13:13 but to think about what that actually means. So in this picture, you have four American colonists, and this is specifically Bostonians Tarring and feathering, the excise man, the tax man. So we’ve gone beyond putting an Effigy, a dummy of someone on a pole to say, we’re mad at you. This is actually taking that human being,

13:34 stripping him down, like stripping him publicly, pouring hot tar. So you have this bucket in the left corner, probably to hold the tar, and then dumping feathers on him. I mean, it’s really horrifying and it could suffer really bad burns and your skin can’t breathe with the tar on it.

13:54 And it’s humiliation and it’s a public warning, like, we’re not paying your tax. So it’s really quite brutal. And also, they’re forcing a tea down his throat because it’s a reference to the Tea Act. So if you think of drinking a beverage that’s too hot, which is me, anytime I go to Starbucks or any other place, I burn my tongue.

14:16 But this is like four guys gang up on you and pouring that hot beverage down your throat. So kind of scary stuff. And then the tree in the background, the Liberty Tree, is referencing a specific tree in Boston where protesters would gather before they went out to protest in some way.

14:36 So that’s a reference to the Liberty Tree. And by putting a noose on it, it seems like, you know, the artist is trying to say that the Liberty Tree isn’t really a good thing because a noose is where you would be hung, it’s where you would die. And then the guys in the background, right, this is a reference to the Boston Tea Party. So this print is depicting a tarring and feathering of a taxman in Boston that took place in January of 1774.

15:00 The Boston Tea Party took place in December of 1773. So that is when, again, to protest this tax on tea, the colonists dressed up as Mohawk Indians and dumped 90,000 pounds of tea. So that’s a lot of tea. I wonder what the water was like after all that tea went in there into the harbor.

15:22 So that was a really big screw you, Parliament for this tax, right, where they’re threatening, they’re humiliating the excise man, but they’ve also destroyed this property. They’re dumping the tea into the water. So I think we’ve answered most of the questions that Josh had. So this is someone they don’t want to pay the tax rather than pay the tax,

15:46 they’re actually attacking and harming the excise man. And it’s all because of this idea of taxation without representation. And I’m going to ask you, Josh well, we kind of gave it away. I think I gave it away already, so I can’t ask you this, but this is a British print and this is the British perspective.

16:08 This isn’t really portraying the Bostonians and their acts of protest in a positive light. It’s almost like he’s saying they’re out of hand. If you look at the faces on the four Bostonians in the foreground that are in the middle of tarring and feathering this guy, they look kind of crazy. Like, if I saw someone, if I saw these guys, I would go the other way across

16:28 the street, because I don’t want to encounter them. So it’s the same concept, but it’s looking at it from, I don’t understand what the problem is with these colonists. We’re just asking them to pay taxes. It’s for their benefit, but from the American perspective, they’re taking it a different way. We don’t have a voice in setting these taxes, so we’re not going to pay it and we’re going to protest it.

16:53 So if you haven’t guessed already, things are escalating between the American colonies and Great Britain. So as a result of the Boston Tea Party, something called the Coercive Acts are passed in 1774. And these are pretty draconian or pretty harsh. So Boston Harbor was closed, right?

17:13 And Boston, a lot of its livelihood is dependent on trade, so it’s really hurting and punishing. Boston town meetings have been banned, so this right to assemble has been taken away. British officials could be tried in Britain for capital crime. So this idea of a trial by jury, again, this is one of these rights of Englishmen that Josh, that you alluded to,

17:35 along with this idea of common law, is being tampered with. Like, instead of having a jury in the colonies where you committed a crime, you’re going to be shipped back to Britain for your case. And that’s not going to be really a fair trial. And soldiers, British soldiers, can be quartered or housed in civilian houses.

17:55 So all of these measures were part of the Coercive Acts, and the colonists start referring to them as the Intolerable Acts. This is just a step too far. So trouble is brewing, things aren’t getting better and war is coming. So again

18:17 when you’re looking at historical image, it just looking will lead to questions and then looking into context and all these details that comes together, and it can really shed light on what’s going on in the past. And it’s also important to consider perspective, right, because it’s understanding that different people would interpret an event in different ways can be really helpful,

18:37 not only when we’re thinking about past, but also in the present day to try to acknowledge, okay, you don’t see things the way I do. Wonder why that might be. Josh, thank you so much for looking at these images with me. I hope everybody learned something. If you did learn something, make sure to like the video and come back for more close readings for art across US history.

19:00 See you later. Bye.