Ten Tea Parties Patriotic Protests That History Forgot

Young Americans know the story of 1773's Boston Tea Party--in which 100colonists (disguised as Native Americans) charged three British ships anddumped 92,000 pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor. But do you know the storyof the Philadelphia TeaParty (December 1773)? How about the New York TeaParty (April 1774)? The Annapolis Tea Party (October 1774)? The Charleston SCTea Party (November 1774)?Revolutionary America was full of tea parties--and Ten Tea Parties is the firstbook to chronicle all of these uniquely American protests. Author and historianJoseph Cummins begins with the history of the East India Company (the biggestglobal corporation of the 18th century) and their staggering financial losses duringthe Boston Tea Party (more than a million dollars' worth of tea in today's money).From there we travel to Philadelphia, where 8,000 colonists gathered onChristmas Day to threaten the captain of a ship with tarring and feathering. Thenwe sail for New York City, where the Sons of Liberty stormed a British ship andtossed 18 chests of tea into the Hudson River. Still later, in Annapolis, a mob ofpatriots actually set a British ship on fire; its crew jumped overboard and the smellof the "detestable weed" carried for miles. Ten Tea Parties concludes with adiscussion of how Americans have returned again and again to the tea party as apolitical protest. In 1973, during the 200th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party,protestors dressed in tricornered hats and knee breeches to hang effigies ofRichard Nixon. And in early 2009, a new political "Tea Party" formed out ofdisaffected conservative voters.

Joseph Cummins is an author and historian. His other books include Anything for a Vote an History’s Great Untold Stories. He lives in Maplewood, New Jersey.