Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0387/03876.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 22KB | 372 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03876}
$Pretitle{444}
$Title{United States of America
Chapter 2B.   Patriots Agitate: The Boston 'Tea Party'}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{United States Information Service}
$Affiliation{United States Government}
$Subject{british
colonies
american
boston
congress
independence
tea
declaration
england
new}
$Date{1991}
$Log{}
Country:     United States of America
Book:        An Outline of American History
Author:      United States Information Service
Affiliation: United States Government
Date:        1991

Chapter 2B.   Patriots Agitate: The Boston "Tea Party"

     During a three-year interval of calm, a relatively small number of
"patriots" or "radicals" strove energetically to keep the controversy alive.
As long as the tea tax remained, they contended, the principle of Parliament's
right over the colonies remained. And at any time in the future, the principle
might be applied in full with devastating effect on colonial liberties.

     Typical of the patriots was their most effective leader, Samuel Adams of
Massachusetts, who toiled tirelessly for a single end: independence. From the
time he graduated from Harvard College, Adams was a public servant in some
capacity-inspector of chimneys, tax-collector, moderator of town meetings. A
consistent failure in business, he was shrewd and able in politics, with the
New England town meeting the theater of his action.

     Adam's tools were men: his goal was to win the confidence and support of
ordinary people, to free them from awe of their social and political
superiors, make them aware if their own importance, and arouse them to action.
To do this, he published articles in newspapers and made speeches in town
meetings, instigating resolutions appealing to the colonists' democratic
impulses.

     In 1772, he induced the Boston town meeting to select a "committee of
correspondence" to state the rights and grievances of the colonists, to
communicate with other towns on these matters, and to request them to draft
replies. Quickly, the idea spread. Committees were set up in virtually all the
colonies, and out of them soon grew a base of effective revolutionary
organizations.

     In 1773, Britain furnished Adams and his co-workers with a desired issue.
The powerful East India Company, finding itself in critical financial straits,
appealed to the British government and was granted a monopoly on all tea
exported to the colonies. Because of the Townshend tea tax, the colonists had
boycotted the company's tea and, after 1770, such a flourishing illegal trade
existed that perhaps nine-tenths of the tea consumed in America was of foreign
origin and imported duty-free.

     The company decided to sell its tea through its own agents at a price
well under the customary one, thus simultaneously making smuggling
unprofitable and eliminating the independent colonial merchants. Aroused not
only by the loss of the tea trade but also by the monopolistic practice
involved, the colonial traders joined the patriots. In virtually all the
colonies, steps were taken to prevent the East India Company from executing
its design.

     In ports other than Boston, agents of the company were "persuaded" to
resign, and new shipments of tea were either returned to England or
warehoused. In Boston, the agents refused to resign and, with the support of
the royal governor, preparations were made to land incoming cargoes
regardless of opposition. The answer of the patriots, led by Samuel Adams, was
violence. On the night of December 16, 1773, a band of men disguised as Mohawk
Indians boarded three British ships lying at anchor and dumped their tea cargo
into the Boston harbor.

British Repress Conony: Others Rally to its Aid

     A crisis now confronted Britain. The East India Company had carried out a
parliamentary statute, and if the destruction of the tea went unheeded,
Parliament would admit to the world that it had no control over the colonies.
Official opinion in Britain almost unanimously condemned the Boston "Tea
Party" as an act of vandalism and advocated legal measures to bring the
insurgent colonists into line.

     Parliament responded with new laws-called by the colonists "Coercive
Acts." The first one, the Boston Port Bill, which closed the port of Boston
until the tea was paid for, threatened the very life of the city, for to
exclude Boston from the sea meant economic disaster. Other enactments
prescribed appointment by the King of Massachusetts councilors, formerly
elected by the colonists; and the summoning of jurors by sheriffs, who were
agents of the governor. Hitherto jurors had been chosen in colonial town
meetings. Also, the governor's permission would be required for holding town
meetings, and the appointment and removal of judges and sheriffs would be in
his hands. A Quartering Act required local authorities to find suitable
quarters for British troops.

     The Quebec Act, passed at nearly the same time, extended the boundaries
of the province of Quebec and guaranteed the right of the French inhabitants
to enjoy religious freedom and their own legal customs. The colonists opposed
this act because, disregarding old charter claims to western lands, it
threatened to interfere with the westward movement and seemed to hem them in
to the north and northwest by a Roman Catholic-dominated province. Though the
Quebec Act had not been passed as a punitive measure, it was classed by the
Americans with the Coercive Acts, and all became known as the "Five
Intolerable Acts." These acts, instead of subduing Massachusetts, as they
had been planned to do, rallied her sister colonies to her aid.

     At the suggestion of the Virginia Burgesses, colonial representatives
were summoned to meet in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, "to consult upon
the present unhappy state of the Colonies." Delegates to this meeting, known
as the first Continental Congress, were chosen by provincial congresses or
popular conventions. Every colony except Georgia sent at least one delegate,
and the total number of 55 was large enough for diversity of opinion but small
enough for genuine debate and effective action.

     The division of opinion in the colonies posed a genuine dilemma for the
Congress: it must give an appearance of firm unanimity to induce the British
government to make concessions and, at the same time, it must avoid any show
of radicalism or "spirit of independence" that would alarm moderate Americans.
A cautious keynote speech, followed by a "resolve" that no obedience was due
the Coercive Acts, ended with a Declaration of Rights and Grievances addressed
to the people of Great Britain.

     The most important action taken by the Congress, however, was the
formation of an "Association," which provided for the renewal of the trade
boycott and for a system of committees to inspect customs entries, publish the
names of merchants who violated the agreements, confiscate their importations,
and encourage frugality, economy, and industry.

     The Association everywhere assumed the leadership, spurring new local
organizations to end what remained of royal authority. These intimidated the
hesitant into joining the popular movement and punished the hostile. They
began the collection of military supplies and the mobilization of troops. And
they fanned public opinion into revolutionary ardor.

     A breach that had been developing slowly among the people widened with
the activities of the Association committees. Many Americans, opposed to
British encroachment on American rights, favored discussion and compromise as
the proper solution. This group included most of those of official rank
(Crown-appointed officers), many Quakers and members of other religious sects
opposed to the use of violence, many merchants, especially from the middle
colonies, and some discontented farmers and frontiersmen from southern
colonies. The patriots, on the other hand, drew their support not only from
the less well-to-do but from many of the professional class, especially
lawyers, most of the gre