Podcast – Boston Tea Party

Today I will talk about one of the seminal events in pre-revolutionary America, the Boston Tea Party.
From the Book
A Day in United States History – Book 1

Transcript:

December 16, 1773 – Boston Tea Party

Greetings, today I will talk about one of the seminal events in pre-revolutionary America, the Boston Tea Party.

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Parliament had passed the Tea Act on May 10, 1773, to help the struggling East India Company compete with other tea importers. The legislation allowed the company to undersell their competition, including colonial tea smugglers. The company sent ships to Boston, New York, Charlestown, and Philadelphia in September 1773 with combined cargoes of over 500,000 pounds of tea. Tea importers in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, under pressure from local patriot groups, refused the shipments. However, the Boston merchants allowed the ships to dock.
The Ships
The East India Company had sent four ships bearing tea to Boston. These ships, the William, Eleanor, Dartmouth and Beaver, had departed England on September 2, 1773. The William had encountered bad weather and wrecked on December 10. The remaining ships arrived, the Dartmouth in late November with the other two docking in early December.
Protests
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty protested the arrival of the tea and demanded that the East India Company return it to England. The Boston merchants, backed up by Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson, refused. As a side note, two of the merchants were Hutchinson’s sons and one was a nephew. The final meeting between Boston citizens and the governor took place at the Old South Meeting House on December 15. Historians estimate that over 7000 people gathered at the meeting. The protesters learned that Hutchinson’s decision was final. Since British law stipulated that, the tea must be unloaded twenty days after its arrival or face confiscation by import authorities, workers would unload the cargo of the Dartmouth, the first ship to arrive. Its deadline would be December 16.
The Boston Tea Party
The Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, had made prior arrangements to meet at the dock if Hutchinson persisted in his quest to unload the tea. Just after midnight, on December 16, Adams and a group of the Sons of Liberty boarded the three ships. Taking great care not to damage any part of the ship, rigging or personal property of the crew or the captain, the Sons confiscated the tea, broke open the crates and tossed them over the side into the salty water, ruining the tea. The men, many dressed as Amerindians, watched carefully to ensure no one stole any of the tea, even reprimanding watchers on the dock that tried to put spilled tea into their pockets. The men destroyed over 340 crates of tea, containing over 92,000 pounds of tea. The cargo would be valued at over $1,700,000 in today’s dollars. During the incident, only one padlock was broken. The captain of the boat owned that padlock, which members of the Sons of Liberty replaced the next day.

Written in a “this day in history,” format, each of the two books in this collection of North American colonial history events includes 366 history stories. The historical collection of tales includes many well-known as well as some little-known events in the saga of the United States. The easy to follow “this day in history,” format covers a wide range of the people, places and events of early American history. I is the first book in my series, 366 Days in History Series. Each book includes 366 stories of American history. It is availble, with many of my other titles on gardening, Indiana places and history and United States History, at the Romweber Marketplace in downtown Batesville, Indiana.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast and thank you for listening