The Boston Tea Party at 250

0:00 [Music] on December 16th 1773 American colonists dressed as Mohawk Native Americans boarded three ships in Boston Harbor working with feror they threw hundreds of chests of tea into the water in an act of

0:21 resistance what caused so much Colonial discontent that led to this event and what was the significance of the Boston Tea Party and our broader history my name is Josh and I’m a Content specialist at the Bill of Rights Institute the Boston Tea Party anniversary is the first of many anniversaries that we will be

0:42 celebrating at B in the leadup to USA 250 and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence I’m joined here by senior scholar Tony Williams as we analyze this event hey Josh yeah you know uh I I love this

1:03 conversation uh we’re starting off America 250s uh commemoration celebrations and you know I think the Boston te party uh is just a great historical event set in the American Revolution but it’s also a time to reflect upon their principles and ideals that they were fighting for uh and I think most

1:23 especially maybe what we’ll talk about is the the idea not only of Liberty but also of self-government because a lot of of the uh a lot of the protest uh that night uh and in the uh aftermath leading to the Continental Congress is all about self-government uh local self-government Congressional

1:44 self-government the national level that American Unity Al all sorts of great principles and and ideals to talk about Yeah you mentioned principles we’ve got a lot of them that really said at the heart of what it means to be an American um we these are common phrases that we have here taxation without

2:06 representation governing at the local level rather than relying on a far away ruler um standing armies and fear around them we’ve got it all here with the Boston Tea Party so it’s a great historical event that we can look to to see what helped form the ideals of our

2:28 our founding right uh and you know the leadup to it is very interesting too um you know there’s this sort of historical series of events we talk about a lot in our life liberty and the pursuit of happiness resource online and you know you have that the whole debate over taxes and tyranny in the 1760s 1770s you

2:50 had the Stamp Act uh and then the repeal based upon American boycotts American resistance um and then you have the towns in Acts and and in 1767 a few years after the Stamp Act those were also rescinded as well because of colonial boycotts uh and the the whole idea was to tax the colonist to get more

3:10 Revenue but because we started boycotting and and not buying anything from the British uh they actually got you know fewer taxes um and uh all the taxes are rescinded against the te except the teac um and you know things kind of quieted down though I mean you by the Boston Massacre by 1770 which

3:32 kind of led to you know a lot of outrage but then by 1771 1772 uh you know the relationship was there’s less tension things have kind of quieted down a bit um there’s Committees of corresponding still writing to each other you know there’s a few outrages but uh by and large things are pretty

3:52 quiet right up until the moment when uh the British uh decide to basically Grant the East India Tea Company which was experiencing a lot of financial difficulties a monopoly over the American colonial tea Market in North America and although the prices actually

4:15 drop uh the Americans are are angry about uh the 3 Cent tax de uh and you know I think George Washington uh said it very well though that it’s not it wasn’t a matter of how much the te cost or sort of a minute amount of Taxation it was really as as we said earlier the principle of the matter right uh he says

4:37 what is it we are contending against is it against paying the duty of three cents per pound on te because burdensome no it is the right only as Englishmen we could not be deprived of this essential and valuable part of our Constitution and what is that valuable part of the Constitution well it’s no taxation

4:58 without representation right no taxation without the consent of the government as you said earlier and in the aftermath of this Tamp act and all the backlash and boycotts England ended up as you mentioned repealing a lot of those taxes but they did keep the te act as a way of

5:19 kind of just holding on to that one thing and saying we can do this if we want to we’ll back off a lot but we can do this if we want to and did settle down a bit the discontent But ultimately that was going to boil over especially when you have the British government essentially you know proing up this

5:41 failed business model that in the the East India Trade Company um and that’s going to really upset the colonist because they have to they’re Merchants they need to make a living and when you have the government uh artificially propping up this government to the point where the te company uh can or the trade company

6:05 I’m sorry can lower their prices so much the American Merchants can’t compete with them and so that’s going to create a lot of discontent with especially with the merchants right yeah speaking of the merchants you know so so uh they’re importing the tea to sell in America and you know they have these ship ship loads full of tea and and

6:25 actually three land uh in Boston Harbor and I think it’s important to note that they land at other ports as well uh such as Charleston Philadelphia nuk Virginia uh and they’re actually tea parties there as well uh lesser known uh but but still very interesting that Boston wasn’t the only place but we normally

6:46 focus on it um so so they try to land the tea uh and and once the ships arrive they’ve they’ve 20 days to unload the tea or or the owners of the ships these Merchants uh B basically uh are responsible for paying taxes on it um and and can have their caros forfeited

7:07 so they have to you know unload it or or leave and and the colonists demand that they leave and they refuse of course uh and so so the bostonians have to um you know develop a response to it and very interestingly you know it’s it’s really a matter of self-government as I said early on they are and and where they’re meeting is interesting too they’re

7:28 meeting uh particularly in in the uh Puritan meeting houses gathering in these sort of large public Halls these large public Gatherings um and it’s really like a just a very large town meeting actually at Several of these meetings thousands of people kind of crowd into the building and kind of

7:49 outside and I think it’s just an expression of just how much popular discontent how much popular anger there was uh at these taxes which were leved with their con sent and uh you know there were a lot of threats made against the tax collectors against the the ship owners trying to to force them out um and like I said they were refused so

8:10 they had to figure out their response finally on uh on December 16th uh the day before the deadline uh for this 20-day um deadline they uh they meet at Old South meeting house and there’s this large meeting and there’s a lot of passions and people yelling to to to dump the tea

8:32 and uh John Hancock Hil Adams are all whipping up the crowd uh talking about making Boston Harbor a teapot tonight uh and a lot of people are are whipped up into a frenzy and uh several of the Ring leaders if you will dress up as you say uh as Mohawk Indians or they just simply

8:53 blacken their faces uh so they can’t be seen or identified especially in in the darkness and they march on down uh to the warf uh and as you say destroy hundreds of crates of tea said 90,000 pounds of tea they destroy it it’s 45 tons by my Reckoning that’s a

9:15 that’s a fantastic amount of tea being dumped into the harbor um and and this is extremely valuable property too right and it’s privately held by by individuals so so they’re really destroying private property um but they’re on the ships and they’re very careful not to otherwise damage the

9:36 ships in fact there’s a story that they uh broke a padlock uh to uh the captain’s door I think it was on one of the ships and and they actually replaced that padlock so they’re very intent upon sending the message uh which they saw as a very just message uh to just dump the te kind of the object of their hatred uh

9:58 that it represented no taxation without representation they were going to dump that into the harbor but not otherwise you know they were going to torch the ships or or destroy them modern day EPA might not be too happy with that much tea going into the harbor but um yeah so a huge event obviously as you mentioned

10:18 so just a massive um massive amount of te being thrown in the harbor um that’s probably I’d assume partly why this one’s stands out among all the the smaller tea parties just the sheer amount um it’s Boston there’s they’re the the problematic ones always from the

10:41 point of view of the British they’ve always been the difficult ones with just how strong of a resistance they’ve had to uh British centralized government and the British overreach you mentioned they dressed up as Mohawks and that’s uh that’s very very important actually um from the modern point of view it it

11:02 might seem confusing like why did they do that why didn’t they just disguise themsel in some other way it’s actually really interesting and important because at that time that was really a a big identifier of being an American essentially living in the North American

11:23 continent as opposed to being an Englishman is that correct that’s my standing yeah I think that just yeah that they were a symbol of Liberty and and and kind of you know people who live very freely so yeah absolutely plus plus it was it was a good disguise they couldn’t be identified so there’s a

11:43 practical side of this but as you say a lot of symbolism as well yep so then obviously after the event there’s going to be a lot of reaction on both sides um you’re going to have even among the colonists there’s actually some division um even those who oppose British rule some are afraid that this

12:05 actually might have gone too far um did we unleash unruly passions by having hanock and Samuel Adams uh give these fiery speeches was this a mob or was this self-governance um at at the heart of

12:27 the whole event Adams he was he had a lot of praise for the destruction of the te it was a symbol from his point of view of British oppression unjust rule but then of course you had more um conservative colonists for lack of a

12:47 better word who were afraid that you know they might have agreed with the sentiments but this actually might have been worse than than what had uh than just the simple Monopoly that had existed because we’re unleashing this passion and this is actually going to

13:08 make all of our issues um the British aren’t going to take us seriously because they’re GNA think we’re just a bunch of unruly out of control people here yeah yeah and worse right that they would crack down on this this the unruliness particularly in Boston where they already had standing armies they had War ships in the harbor um and yeah

13:33 I mean there there was certainly that division as you said conservatives moderates um those who kind of wanted to slow down they were very concerned about the destruction of private property wanted uh the bostonians to make restitution uh to the owners of the tea uh they uh and and as you said we’re concerned about kind of that mob Rule and and those passions uh and so forth

13:55 John Adams has a great quote the 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 an EPA in history right he started really like a great turning point in the American Revolution I mean he was pushing for for stronger and

14:17 stronger measures for a long time uh and and seems to have gotten it well and and and the British response is is just as Swift okay um in the spring of 1774 they passed the coer of Acts which the Americans label the Intolerable Acts either way they’re seen as a sort of a symbol of

14:37 Oppression and they included several things um and and they’re really important um the uh Boston Port act uh that closed down Boston Harbor right until restitution for the tea was made this really important because it’s sort of seen as a as a measure of economic tyranny right going along with those taxes and so forth um that they’re going

14:59 to stop their trade and kind of starve the bostonians the Massachusetts Government Act wiped out Town meetings and and alter the the Massachusetts Charter this seems like an act of political tyranny right that they’re not allowed to govern themselves by their own consent so you have economic tyranny political tyranny uh the administra the impartial administration of justice act

15:20 that says that um you know British officials accused of a capital crime like murder in the colonies are going to tried over in Britain right so now they’re not being tried by American juries of their peers where the crime took place but where they can find a very favorable outcome over in Britain right and and the idea is that they

15:40 would be um you know that they wouldn’t be indicted for the murder so so that seems to just to allow kind of the the murder and just kind of the crimes against the colonists without without fear of punishment um and uh also the quartering act that they could quarter troops uh inside colonist homes and property and soth again sort of seen as

16:02 as a violation of their property rights right think about John Lock and so forth so so in all these measures whether it’s economic tyranny uh tyranny of Justice uh tyranny of property tyranny of policy it’s it’s all kind of a widespread denial of of the rights of PE the colonist in Massachusetts right and the

16:24 British really believe that this is where the ring leaders were this is what got to shut down and if you you quieted the ring leaders if you brought them to justice if you had them arrested uh and tried uh then you know the people would calm down so it was really seen as sort of the a couple of troublemakers right a couple of Rabel rousers who were who

16:45 were leading this whole thing um and and you know the American response is is just as Swift uh to these coercive or intable Intolerable Acts yep and then the long-term American response of course we’re going to circle back around USA 250 and the Declaration of Independence the the British

17:06 reaction um the things they took a lot of that is going to be part of the Grievances of the Declaration of Independence we’ve got quartering of troops we’ve got shutting down of local self-governance Town meetings Etc um we’ve got issues just around um

17:29 religious liberty with the the Quebec Act as well I believe is something that the British passed um so just a lot there that that’s going to sit at the founding of our nation right right and and the Quebec Quebec Act was not officially uh a cors of act but it was passed around the same time and it

17:51 seemed to it gave religious liberty to Catholics which for a Protestant nation of colonists was was pretty outrage ous um and so they sort of feared an American bishop and and the rise of Catholicism so this seemed like religious tyranny as well so there’s all those different forms of tyranny and the American response is uh you know is is

18:11 greater Unity right these coercive acts actually have the ironic um outcome not intended by the British to to solidify American identity to encourage the growth of American Unity because all these colonies were very different they had different sort of cultures different

18:33 economies uh different sort of dominant religions and so forth they were they’re sort of like little separate you know kingdoms or or or different just States uh which were very different from each other and there wasn’t much Unity right this unifies them uh in Virginia George Washington uh says the cause of Boston now is and ever will be considered as

18:54 the cause of America right he’s starting to think more continentally rather than just Virginia um and Virginia actually had a day of prayer and fasting to support their Brethren up in Boston uh and uh they held it to give us one heart and one mind to firmly oppose as they wrote by all just and proper means every

19:16 injury to American rights right so they’re not just talking about Virginia Massachusetts New York South Carolina now they’re talking about American rights American identity American Unity now we’re still kind of a far away from sort of completely achieving that however it’s very important because then uh they will assemble based upon

19:37 various calls for a continental congress right to sort of discuss their unified response to this and they do right in the fall of 1774 they meet in Philadelphia uh and they pass a declaration of rights and grievances they they pass you know sort of a unified boycott of of British goods and then decide again to meet in

19:59 Philadelphia um in uh in the spring of 1775 and of course we know that’s the second continent of Congress and by that time the war will have broken out and that’ll further sort of solidify American identity and unity because we’re at War you know against the British so so it has really that very strong galvanizing effect so

20:21 as we as we talk about American 250 we look at the significance of the Tea Party to the American Revolution we see very much how the cause of Boston and sort of this local event um in in Boston Harbor led to a greater examination uh of of you know American

20:42 identity American Unity uh and and unified response against those taxes and tyranny that hadn’t really existed uh in in the decade leading up to this with all the talk of no taxation without representation yeah so Bost party we can see is really a galvanizing event really

21:03 a foundational event in our history that every school kid still knows about it’s very famous we’re going to continue to look at these famous events that uh were at the start of the American Revolution during the leadup to USA 250 here at PR

21:24 so beyond the lookout we’re going to be coming out with a lot more lessons uh playlists for all the famous events and then of course it all culminates with the signing of the Declaration and all the principles of that Declaration of Liberty equality natural rights let’s sit at the heart of

21:45 the American experiment so we’re looking forward to sharing all of that with our audience yeah no I am too uh it should be very exciting uh looking forward to that and participating in that as an American and as uh a senior fellow here at B and thanks for the great conversation Josh yep thanks everyone for joining

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