The Boston Tea Party: causes and historical significance

Tea Party

The American tea party

The Tea Party is a populist movement that promotes several conservative values which include the following;

Limitations on the authority of the U.S. federal government

Reduction of government spending and the national debt

Reduction of personal and corporate taxes

This is a party that has been known over the historical moments to pull frustrated and concerned Americans together to protest against excessive government spending coupled with increased debt burden. This conservative group has it that the government's growing involvement in business and indulgence in individual freedom is a deviation from conservative values.

Since its inception to date, the mission of the Tea Party Coalition has been to organize and launch in a rapid response fashion special nationwide projects that will help to advance the goal of a return to a constitutionally limited government that does not go overboard, through whichever arm to disenfranchise the American citizens in whichever situation the country may find itself.

Background

The American tea party came into being way back in 1773. It was at the peak of victory over the long French- Indian war which was so instrumental and costly to Britain that Britain thought of implementing tea tax. This was to serve as a way of refinancing the economy. Since most people loved tea they were ready to part with the tax than part with a cup of tea.

In 1770 there was a mass demonstration in America against taxation that led the parliament to repeal the Townshend duties except for the duty that was imposed on tea. There was great dissatisfaction by the colonists on the decision and resorted to taking smuggled tea as a way of revolt leading to a drop of up to 70% of sales within three years (U.S. History, 2011). The British government was really determined to prevent the British East India Company from going out of business. It was therefore determined to force the colonists to buy their tea. In May 1773, Prime Minister North and the British parliament therefore passed the Tea Act. This Tea Act allowed the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the colonists, bypassing the colonial wholesale merchants. This allowed the company to sell their tea much cheaper than the colonial merchants who were selling smuggled tea from Holland.

A series of actions including the Stamp Act (1765), the Boston Massacre (1770) and the Townsend Acts (1767) and a series of other smaller and annoying taxes like on playing cards annoyed the masses and strained relations with the mother country. But it was the intentions to tax tea that pushed the colonists into taking action and acted as a preamble for the American Revolution that ultimately led to the American tea party.

The people refused to be fooled by the Parliament's ploy. When the East India Company sent shipments of tea to New York and Philadelphia the ships were denied the mandate to dock. However, in Charleston the ships laden with tea were allowed to dock but their cargo was detained in a warehouse where it stayed for three years until it was sold by patriots in order to help finance the revolution.

In Boston, the docking of three tea ships spurred a furious reaction. The crisis came to a peak in December 16, 1773 when an estimated 7,000 angry locals thronged the pier where the ships were docked. A mass meeting that was held at the Old South Meeting House that morning resolved that the tea ships should leave the harbor without paying any duties. This stand did not resonate well with the Collector of Customs who in turn refused to allow the ships to leave without payment of the duty. The committee reported back to the mass meeting and a disagreement ensued from the hall where the meeting was held. On December 16, 1773, late in the evening, a group of men widely known as "Sons of Liberty" converged at the Boston Harbor dressed like Mohawk Indians.

The 'sons of liberty' boarded three British ships, the Beaver, the Eleanor and the Dartmouth, and dumped about forty-five tons of tea into the Boston Harbor. Some disguised as Indian Mohawks assembled on a near-by hill. Singing war chants, the crowd descended upon the three ships and dumped their cargos of tea into the water. Most colonists welcomed the action chanting loud cheers while London vehemently condemned the action as intolerable (Eye Witness to History, 2002).

A popular song of the day was called "Revolutionary Tea. Its first stanza was as follows;

"There was an old lady lived over the sea, and she was an Island Queen; her daughter lived off in a new country, with an ocean of water between. The old lady's pockets were full of gold, but never contented was she, so she called on her daughter to pay her a tax, of three pence a pound on her tea, of three pence a pound on her tea."

The "Tea Party" was then quickly formed and also established in other port cities in America. This tended to polarize the opposing sides in the ever widening dispute between the Patriots and the Loyalists. Patriots and Loyalists became more fervent about their views in the wake of the revolutionary popularity of the Tea Party. The dominant view among many political leaders at that time was that the destruction of private property was not in order, but it was inevitable and understandable under the circumstances since it was done for the greater good of the people and a future America in general.

What followed the wanton destruction of property and a continuing revolts led by the tea party was the parliamentary decree passing very intolerable rules as well as closing the Port of Boston. This angered people even the more and sparked the struggle for liberty and independence of America.

In short, the Boston Tea Party was not in any way a preconception of lost tempers and hotheads. Though there was a lot of anger and resentment, history has it that the colonists had held many organized meetings to discuss the events that were unfolding in their cities. The Boston Tea Party is an important part of America's history. The establishment of independence from Britain did not happen overnight. A series of events led to the American Revolution. A turning point in history occurred that December morning in 1773 when the lobbyists decided that enough was enough of the injustices they were suffering from their mother country, the Great Britain. There was widespread violence that was perpetuated by the tea party and with each day the dispute between the mother country and the colonies grew (David W. Koeller, 1999).

The Revolution war in Boston and beyond

The Boston massacre acted as a significant starting point of the American Revolution. Crowds of civilians had taunted soldiers guarding the customs house and dared them to shoot, eventually the soldiers shot eleven people killing five among the eleven shot. This was in 1770 and these were treated as the fits martyrs of the revolution and they were accorded an elaborate burial procession.

The subsequent decisions that were made by the colonial masters made the situation even worse the tension that had already gripped the country during the tea tax revolts. These were known as the five intolerable Acts. These acts were passed in a bid to have control over the rebellious American population and they included suspension of the Massachusetts locals government, inauguration of a military rule in Boston, instilled fear among Americans by confirming the continuation of French civil law and system of governance as well as Catholicism for Quebec yet the locals were highly inclined towards Protestantism. These changes brought so much tension that the colonial representatives, through the correspondence decided to hold a meeting to respond to the crisis in Philadelphia in 1774.

As the tension grew further, there were three thousand troops deployed to take charge of Boston hence forcing the revolution spirit to spread to the rural areas where there was resistance to the new rules. The British passed a rule outlawing any further meetings but most towns simply ignored this directive and continued to meet as usual. In all counties there was a daily assembly of men who went to prevent the opening of any county courts and even coerced the jurists who were appointed by the crown to resign. The situation was a bit different in Suffolk as the massive number of troops guarded the courts and they continued to open as usual, however, the jurors themselves began to voluntarily resign one by one. The effect was that by August 1774, the local artisans and farmers in Massachusetts had taken control of virtually all the significant sectors, away from the control of the crown.

By and by, the citizens began to arm themselves and each man had to have at least two pounds of gunpowder incase there was an attack, judges who hitherto had been wiling crown appointees began to resign in mass, the provincial administration began to urge the towns to withhold tax from the crown and instead divert it to the arming of the locals and a protracted debate on whether to ban trade with Britain totally or not raged on in the continental Congress. This 1774 congress came up with a declaration of rights put in simple words as "We ask only for peace, liberty and security. We wish no diminution of royal prerogatives, we demand no new rights." (James L. Roark et.al. eds.) This declaration never went down well with Britain who felt that the demand for the rights by the Americans was already too radical.

What followed was bloodshed in Massachusetts even before the second Continental Congress could be held. Thomas Gage requested for reinforcement, an idea which fortified the local farmers even to take more arms with the reason that they were defending intrusion into their farms and a denial of their rights. During the winter of 1774-75 Americans pressed on with the boycotts with the hope of the repeal of the Coercive Acts and the British position became more and more desperate. Gage advised the British that the situation in America was getting out of hand but the crown could hear none of it and ordered him to deal mercilessly with any rebels before Americans got better organized. The disarmament attempt in Concord village resulted into a fire exchange that left a number of people dead and wounded. At the end of it the British soldiers never found the arms they had gone to search. They began the long trek back to Boston and on the way they were attacked by the American militia. This resulted into further deaths and wounding of 273 British soldiers and 95 casualties on the American side, this was April 19, 1775 and it was the bloodiest attach even and it was clear that the war had began. The news of the Concord attack spread fast and within 8 days it was already among Virginias who were also engulfed in the frenzy of revenge. Lord Dunmore at last had to recruit and arm slaves who had volunteered to fight for the British and promised freedom for them.

The recruitment of the slaves fuelled the war even more as the American slave owners had to constantly ensure their slaves remained loyal and kept fighting off the British who influenced their slaves and denied them their rights. Thousands of slaves, as far as Maryland rebelled and sought their freedom through joining hands with the British.

At the end of the war in 1783, more than 20,000 blacks had sought refuge from the British side by joining their forces. However, they did not get the ultimate liberty but were used by the British for menial jobs and predisposed to diseases in the camps. It is only an estimated 10,000 who persisted through the challenges of war and ultimately under the protection of the British army left the country to start their new lives in Canada or Sierra Leone.

Role of the Tea party on American politics

The Tea Party movement has impacted the American politics significantly from its formation in 1773. This has been through opposing government size and spending, pressing for the lowering of tax at various levels and generally acting as a check system against the excesses of the government. It policies and political stand has over time attracted prominent politicians, and helping elect various representatives in the American governance structure at different levels over the years in the American history the latest being the election of Republican Members of Congress in 2010.

The Tea Party is noted to be continually influencing the political trends in America and it has been noted by Jim Bencivenga, (2010), that time is due to tell how the Tea Party movement's influence expands or contracts and whether the Tea Party can attract a majority of Americans to its views and stands . For instance, the support of tea party activists had a big part to play for U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith's election in November, though some have become former supporters who say they are experiencing buyers' remorse. Tea party groups held two protests in Virginia's 9th District, outside Griffith's offices in Abingdon and Christiansburg.

Griffith defeated Rick Boucher, a 14-term Democratic congressman. Turner claimed tea party members worked 'heart and soul' to get Griffith elected in exchange for his signature on a pledge supporting a few key planks of the tea party platform. Among them: to diligently work to cut the size of the government, to defund and repeal the health-care law and to practice fiscal conservatism. However the members of the tea party claim to have been betrayed and cheated by Griffith. To emphasize the continued conservative view and concern for the control of the excessive debts by the government is a scenario where a tea party member was noted saying that the newly elected Republican leadership in Congress, which rode a wave of tea party, supported victories in November, is ignoring the problem of the nation. She believes the Republican Party is squandering a historic opportunity to change the direction of the country.

The Tea Party's main platform from 1773 and over the years has been fiscal conservatism, that is, the belief that the American government should avoid spending more on government programs than it earns. Actually, supporters advocate policies that reduce government spending and the national debt, which is currently reported at more than $14 trillion and growing. Tea Party members are also strongly in support of a balanced budget, free trade, lower taxes, and deregulation of the economy.

All these make it clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the American Tea Party is influential in the country's politics and more so has a role to play. Basing on the core values of the party the members really have a role they do play as far as American politics is concerned.

Leadership

The American tea party birthed in Boston up-to-date has no formal structures of leadership. It has been an informal collaborative group right from inception without a corporate structure. The current Tea party leadership nationwide consists of 35 local leaders.

According to Robert J. Goodwin (2010), the party has always had a "starfish" structure since its formation and over the historical period, which has enabled the Tea Party to define itself on issues; rather than on the record or charisma of a figurehead at the top. He flashes back to when Sarah Palin was the undisputed face of the movement, and says it was easier for critics to lob attacks. Now, the debate is focused on a push for smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation and greater personal freedom. He sums it up by noting that it's difficult to attack the organization of the Tea Party since it has no clearly defined leadership.