The Boston Tea Party
(Wikimedia Commons)
This article was
originally published on Political Violence @ a Glance.
Tomorrow, cities and towns
from coast-to-coast will host fireworks, concerts and parades to
celebrate our independence from Britain. Those celebrations will invariably highlight the soldiers who
pushed the British from our shores. But the lesson we learn of a democracy
forged in the crucible of revolutionary war tends to ignore how a decade
of nonviolent resistance before the
shot-heard-round-the-world shaped the founding of the United States, strengthened
our sense of political identity, and laid the foundation of our democracy.
We’re taught that we won our independence
from Britain through bloody battles. We recite poetry
about the midnight ride of Paul Revere that warned of a British
attack. And we’re shown depictions of Minutemen in battle with Redcoats in
Lexington and Concord.
I grew up in Boston where
our veneration for revolutionary battles against the British extends far beyond
the Fourth of July. We celebrate Patriots’ Day to commemorate the anniversary of the
first battles of the Revolution and Evacuation Day to commemorate the day British troops
finally fled Boston. And at the start of every Red Sox game we stand, take off
our hats and sing — 33,000 strong — about the perilous fight, the rockets’ red
glare, and the bombs bursting in air that gave proof through the night that our
flag was still there.
Yet, founding father, John
Adams wrote that, “A history of military operations
… is not a history of the American Revolution.”
American revolutionaries
led not one, but three nonviolent resistance campaigns in the
decade before the Revolutionary War. These campaigns were coordinated. They were primarily nonviolent. They helped politicize American society. And they
allowed colonists to replace colonial political institutions with parallel
institutions of self-government that help form the foundation of the democracy that we rely on
today.
The first nonviolent resistance campaign was
in 1765 against the Stamp Act. Tens of thousands of our forbearers refused to
pay the British king a tax simply to print legal documents and newspapers, by
collectively deciding to halt consumption of British goods. The ports of
Boston, New York and Philadelphia signed pacts against importing British
products; women made homespun yarn to replace British cloth; and eligible
bachelorettes in Rhode Island even refused to accept the addresses of any man
who supported the Stamp Act.
Colonists organized the
Stamp Act Congress. It passed statements of colonial rights and limits on
British authority, and sent copies to every colony as well as one copy to
Britain thereby demonstrating a united front. This mass political mobilization
and economic boycott meant the Stamp Act would cost the British more money than
it was worth to enforce, leaving it dead on arrival. This victory also demonstrated the power of nonviolent
non-cooperation: people-powered defiance of unjust social, political
or economic authority.
The second nonviolent resistance campaign started
in 1767 against the Townshend Acts. These acts taxed paper, glass, tea and
other commodities imported from Britain. When the Townsend Acts went into
effect, merchants in Boston, New York and Philadelphia again stopped importing
British goods. They declared that anyone continuing to trade with the British
should be labeled “enemies of their country.” A sense of a
new political identity detached from Britain grew across the colonies.
By 1770, colonists
developed the Committees of Correspondence, a new political institution
detached from British authority. The committees allowed colonists to share information and coordinate their opposition.
The British Parliament reacted by doubling down and taxing tea, which led
enraged members of the Sons of Liberty to carry out the infamous Boston Tea
Party.
The British Parliament countered with the Coercive Acts,
which effectively cloistered Massachusetts. The port of Boston was closed until
the British East India Company was repaid for their Tea Party loses. Freedom of
assembly was officially limited. And court trials were moved from
Massachusetts.
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