The Handy Boston Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton
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as the Bostonians called it, was complete. Three hundred and forty-two chests of tea had been heaved over the side of the ships, and the “Mohawks” went home, presumably to celebrate. British Admiral Sir John Montagu happened to stay ashore that evening, and he called out that the Bostonians had had their fun, but they would soon have to pay the piper. He was right.
One of the most famous acts of defiance before the actual revolution was the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when colonists dressed as Indians boarded three British ships and dumped their cargoes into the harbor.
Do we have any first-hand accounts of the Boston Tea Party?
Our best account comes from the mouth of George Robert Twelves Hewes (1742–1840). Decades after the event, and just shortly before his own death, Hewes related his experience to not one but two biographers, and his stories provide our best understanding of the Tea Party.
“When we arrived at the wharf,” Hewes wrote, “there were three of our number who assumed an authority to direct our operations, to which we readily submitted. They divided us into three parties, for the purpose of boarding the three ships which contained the tea at the same time.” None of the sailors aboard the tea ships offered any resistance, and the Americans quickly went about their work, which sounds as if it all was accomplished within an hour and a half.
Did Bostonians really think they would get away with it?
They did. Bostonians were appalled in the spring of 1774, to learn that King George III and Parliament had slapped a series of new acts upon them. These laws were not about taxes; they were much more important than that. The Massachusetts Government Act formally closed Boston as the seat of royal government, removing it to Salem. The Boston Port Act closed the port until the tea was paid for. And the Quartering Act asserted that Bostonians would have to house troops in their homes until further notice. King George III and his ministers called these the Coercive Acts, but Bostonians soon labeled them the Intolerable Acts. The latter title is the one that stuck.
King George III’s resolution was admirable, but he chose the wrong man for the job. Lieutenant General Thomas Gage was a seasoned military officer who knew the colonies well, but he was a fainthearted man, not the right person to enforce a tough series of acts. Gage’s wife was an American, a beauty from Philadelphia, and she may have persuaded her husband to go even more gently on her countrymen.
Was anyone ever tried, or even remotely punished, for actions at the Boston Tea Party?
No one was punished for their actions at the Boston Tea Party. Like the destruction of HMS Gaspee the year before, the Destruction of the Tea was a flagrant violation of British law, but no one could be found to testify. Too, the actors were cleverly disguised in their Indian clothing. The last surviving member of the Tea Party died around the year 1845.
AN AFRICAN AMERICAN VOICE
How did Phillis Wheatley become so well-known in pre-Revolutionary Boston?
Born in Senegal, Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784) was captured, enslaved, and brought to Boston around the year 1762. The name of the ship that brought her was Phillis, and the name of the family that purchased her was Wheatley. Her story was unremarkable to this point; many African Americans came to Boston as slaves. Something different emerged during her first decade in America, however: Phillis Wheatley had the same level of education as a typical upper-class white girl of her time.
John and Susannah Wheatley were very fond of their slave girl, and they raised her up to be something of a prodigy. There may have been some black poets prior to Phillis, but none of them are known. Phillis, by contrast, became known as early as 1770, when she wrote an elegy in honor of Reverend George Whitefield. As she entered her twenties, Phillis extended her literary skills even further, and her first selection of poems were published first in London, and then in Boston (in 1773 and 1774).
Was Phillis Wheatley as talented as her many admirers like to claim?
Her poetry has, over the last two centuries, been both acclaimed and despised. Many literary scholars characterize her something of a copycat, declaring that almost any well-educated girl of the time could have turned out those lines. What these scholars ignore is the depth of feeling that emerges from Phillis’s poems. Here was a person who saw almost the worst life had to offer, and through the kindness of her mistress, as well as her own considerable great efforts, she rose above the situation.
Phillis Wheatley and her mistress returned to Boston from London in 1774. Susannah Wheatley died soon thereafter, and Phillis was freed. She remained close to the Wheatley family, and, during the Siege of Boston, she became known for the poem she wrote in honor of General George Washington.
A 1773 engraving of Phillis Wheatley.
What was the life expectancy of Bostonians, and other residents of Massachusetts, during the eighteenth century?
Most of us know the large variety of illnesses and incapacities that struck almost without warning: they included smallpox, diphtheria, and tuberculosis. Occasionally the record reflects something quite different, a testimony to good health and long life. An obituary ran in the Boston Gazette on November 21, 1774.
Died at Danvers, Mr. Thomas Nelson in the 104th year of his age. He was born at Norwich in England, June 1671 in the reign of King Charles the II. At the [Glorious] Revolution he was an apprentice to a weaver in that city when he enlisted as a soldier under King William, to go over to Ireland, to drive out James II. He served also in Queen Anne’s Wars; was a sailor in the fleet under Sir Cloudesley Shovell at the siege and taking of Barcelona, and was in the expedition to Canada, 1711, at which time he settled in Danvers, and till within this year or two, was able to walk miles. He had but one eye, and his hair white like the driven snow, but retained his reason and walked remarkably erect—At length the weary wheels of life stood still.
THE BRITISH OCCUPATION
When did General Gage arrive?
Thomas Gage (1719–1787) came to Boston in May 1774, and the official trade stoppage began immediately. Even if a Boston skipper was lucky enough to evade port authorities, he would run into British ships of war anchored in the bay. For once, the British had the right combination of will power and military strength. They did not count on the reaction of the other colonies, however.
Until June 1774, Boston was essentially on its own, a town that had in some ways gone rogue. But that month, the leaders of most of the other colonies decided to help Boston in its time of need. Food and clothing were dispatched from other colonial towns, and though the Royal Navy blocked the harbor, General Gage did not prevent these articles from crossing The Neck. As a result, the people of Boston would make it through the winter of 1774–1775.
How important was Massachusetts to the establishment of the First Continental Congress?
Boston’s plight was the future plight of all the colonies, or so the argument ran. Twelve out of the thirteen colonies (Georgia refrained) sent delegates to the First Continental Congress, which convened in Philadelphia at the beginning of September 1774. The mood was troubled but also electric.
John Hancock, Sam Adams, and John Adams were all present at the Congress. They helped shape the pamphlets and essays that came out of the meetings in Philadelphia. Most delegates to the Continental Congress still considered themselves Englishmen, and subjects of King George III, but they were also in the process of becoming Americans. Their letters and memorials to the king and his ministers were not exactly defiant, but neither were they conciliatory. And while the First Continental Congress met, Boston went through another alarm, which suggested outright war was not very far off.
What was the Powder Alarm?
In September 1774, General