When customs officials sought to the controversy alive . They contend-
collect duties, they were set upon by ed that payment of the tax consti-
the populace and roughly handled . tuted an acceptance of the principle
For this infraction, two British regi- that Parliament had the right to rule
ments were dispatched to protect the over the colonies . They feared that at
customs commissioners .
any time in the future, the principle
The presence of British troops in of parliamentary rule might be ap-
Boston was a standing invitation to plied with devastating effect on all
disorder . On March 5, 1770, antag- colonial liberties .
onism between citizens and British
The radicals’ most effective
soldiers again flared into violence . leader was Samuel Adams of Mas-
What began as a harmless snowball- sachusetts, who toiled tirelessly for
ing of British soldiers degenerated a single end: independence . From
into a mob attack . Someone gave the the time he graduated from Harvard
order to fire . When the smoke had College in 1743, Adams was a public
cleared, three Bostonians lay dead in servant in some capacity — inspec-
the snow . Dubbed the “Boston Mas- tor of chimneys, tax-collector, and
sacre,” the incident was dramatically moderator of town meetings . A
pictured as proof of British heart- consistent failure in business, he was
lessness and tyranny .
shrewd and able in politics, with
Faced with such opposition, Par- the New England town meeting his
liament in 1770 opted for a strategic theater of action .
retreat and repealed all the Townsh-
Adams wanted to free people
end duties except that on tea, which from their awe of social and politi-
was a luxury item in the colonies, cal superiors, make them aware of
imbibed only by a very small minori- their own power and importance,
ty . To most, the action of Parliament and thus arouse them to action . To-
signified that the colonists had won ward these objectives, he published
a major concession, and the cam- articles in newspapers and made
paign against England was largely speeches in town meetings, instigat-
dropped . A colonial embargo on ing resolutions that appealed to the
“English tea” continued but was not colonists’ democratic impulses .
too scrupulously observed . Prosper-
In 1772 he induced the Boston
ity was increasing and most colonial town meeting to select a “Commit-
leaders were willing to let the future tee of Correspondence” to state the
take care of itself .
rights and grievances of the colo-
nists . The committee opposed a
SAMUEL ADAMS
British decision to pay the salaries
D
of judges from customs revenues; it
uring a three-year interval of feared that the judges would no lon-
calm, a relatively small number of ger be dependent on the legislature
radicals strove energetically to keep for their incomes and thus no longer
56
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
accountable to it, thereby leading to In Boston, however, the agents de-
the emergence of “a despotic form fied the colonists; with the support
of government .” The committee of the royal governor, they made
communicated with other towns on preparations to land incoming car-
this matter and requested them to goes regardless of opposition . On
draft replies . Committees were set the night of December 16, 1773, a
up in virtually all the colonies, and band of men disguised as Mohawk
out of them grew a base of effective Indians and led by Samuel Adams
revolutionary organizations . Still, boarded three British ships lying at
Adams did not have enough fuel to anchor and dumped their tea cargo
set a fire .
into Boston harbor . Doubting their
countrymen’s commitment to prin-
THE BOSTON “TEA PARTY”
ciple, they feared that if the tea were
I
landed, colonists would actually
n 1773, however, Britain furnished purchase the tea and pay the tax .
Adams and his allies with an incen-
A crisis now confronted Britain .
diary issue . The powerful East India The East India Company had car-
Company, finding itself in critical fi- ried out a parliamentary statute . If
nancial straits, appealed to the Brit- the destruction of the tea went un-
ish government, which granted it a punished, Parliament would admit
monopoly on all tea exported to the to the world that it had no control
colonies . The government also per- over the colonies . Official opinion
mitted the East India Company to in Britain almost unanimously con-
supply retailers directly, bypassing demned the Boston Tea Party as an
colonial wholesalers . By then, most act of vandalism and advocated le-
of the tea consumed in America was gal measures to bring the insurgent
imported illegally, duty-free . By sell- colonists into line .
ing its tea through its own agents
at a price well under the customary
THE COERCIVE ACTS
one, the East India Company made
smuggling unprofitable and threat- Parliament responded with new
ened to eliminate the independent laws that the colonists called the
colonial merchants . Aroused not “Coercive” or “Intolerable Acts .” The
only by the loss of the tea trade but first, the Boston Port Bill, closed
also by the monopolistic practice in- the port of Boston until the tea was
volved, colonial traders joined the paid for . The action threatened the
radicals agitating for independence . very life of the city, for to prevent
In ports up and down the At- Boston from having access to the
lantic coast, agents of the East In- sea meant economic disaster . Other
dia Company were forced to resign . enactments restricted local author-
New shipments of tea were either re- ity and banned most town meetings
turned to England or warehoused . held without the governor’s consent .
57