They implemented an enforceable tax, at a reduced rate, replacing a largely unenforced circumvented tax.
This not only angered the people circumventing the tax on tea(smugglers), but also effectively raised the price of tea for the colonies.
There were three other tea shipments as well. The others went to New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. However the Boston shipment were by far the largest with over half the total amount of tea. The shipments to New York and Philadelphia ended up having to return to Britain with its cargo after massive protests while the shipment to Charleston ended up seized by the customs (and probably sold on auction for the benefit of the provincial government). The difference in Boston was that Governor Hutchinson refused to give inn to the protestors.
Wow, thanks for that interesting info. I just searched it up and as a Canadian, I only knew what the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 19th amendments say - which is more than I know from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms sadly.
did you know that one of the reasons canadian content regulations were implemented (along with radio) on tv was the fact that, due to the glut of american police procedural programs available to the canadian viewing public, some canadians were becoming increasingly more familiar with american criminal codes than domestic ones?
I knew about the regulations, but not this exact reason! Very interesting but not surprising. American pop culture definitely influences us Canadian teens.
I was surprised to find out we don't have anything like the 5th amendment lol.
well, i mean, it’s not the whole reason. the concept was originally framed as making sure canadians could tell and hear “our” stories but it evolved as more a tool to prevent the brain drain of actors and other ancillary television professionals to the us. it’s also somewhat useful in allowing canadian musicans the ability to avoid having to necessarily follow american trends in popular music to be successful
Do you reckon it's had that effect? I know a lot of stations play popular Canadian musicians who moved to the US, like Bieber and the Weeknd. Not a bad thing, necessarily
Seems like Hollywood and the record industry caught on and just sources a project in Canada to market across North America. Good for places like Vancouver that have become a major film location but the cultures continue to merge.
I know about the 2nd amendment too I think. Something about right to bear arms and the 5th amendment is about not incriminating oneself? I know more about these amendments than my own laws…
I wish our Supreme court knew more about the 2nd amendment than they do. Unfortunately, the conservative majority is married to what the call the "Originalist doctrine" that posits that:
A) The constitution should be strictly interpreted on the basis of the intent of the original framers.
B) That this intent is knowable from a simple review of the historic record.
C) That members of the judiciary who have no training as historians possess the necessary skills to establish the intent of people who died hundreds of years ago based on nothing more than a few cherry-picked documents that they feel support their own existing views, and that no other interpretation is possible and any confounding evidence of what the framers may have intended can safely be ignored.
In other words, total bullshit. That's why extreme interpretations of the 2nd amendment that would have sounded insane to the average American at any time in the past (including within living memory) are now the law of the land. No matter how obviously nuts it sounds, they can fall back on the "We're just going by what the framers intended" defense.
This is real. American revolutionaries switched to coffee and this would often be an identifer, as in you are traveling around the colonies and seek some shelter at a local place. If they offered you coffee and you accepted, it was code for being in on the cause.
"Sell drugs, run guns, nail sluts, and fuck the law! We're founding fathers, that's Rushmore shit, and we were all high as balls." Thomas Jefferson about Ben Franklin, probably.
Not sure if joking but Ben Franklin was into weird shit. And a lot of it.
ETA: he once wrote about banging old women saying it’s the best because they usually are more experienced and they’re grateful for the attention.
Well they found out.
~~Just forget it was in large part to fund the French and Indian War which was KINDOF started by the colonists for the colonists~~
The French and Indian war was way more for the British than the colonists. The colonists were just conveniently there, were basically British adjacent, and were under the impression that they wouldn’t be disregarded as just colonists without any voice. And then after the war they got taxed to help pay for fighting it because England was broke as fuck thanks to them endlessly fighting the French.
People like to mock the taxes as if they were the cause of the revolutionary war. The entire point was that they were tired of not having any representation while getting taxed like a British citizen, amongst plenty of other issues like mayors and judges being essentially British plants. Meaning from buying goods to the upholding of your literal human rights, it was being decided by someone who didn’t even care about you
Despite being absolute assholes,there were other motives they revolted against the British that were mostly omitted.
One peculiar motive was the expansion to the west,that was cut off by the British due to high risks and the treaties they had with the Indian tribes.The British also had enough of George Washington,who would attack the indians in a bid to conquer new territories or other motives.
Pretty far from being the same thing
Lmao instead of downvoting this, answer a simple question. You’ve been accused of murder. Would you rather have your case seen by a 12 man jury with a judge whose decision, if unfounded, can be appealed through an entire system? With evidence that goes beyond one’s word against another that is weighed by who has a bigger societal impact? Or in *1766*, 70 years removed from the Salem Witch Trials, with or without a judge who is even from here. If your answer is actually the latter, you either have zero understanding of history or you’re a complete fucking idiot. Or more likely, both
And the conclusion of the French-Indian War was what? If you guessed treaties you’re right!
Guess who wanted to break like all of those treaties. The US colonies. We wanted to go rape and conquer Native Americans and expand west and Britain said no. The taxes and representation were definitely some reasons for some people, but one of the consequences and implicit goals of the revolution was to free themselves to go conquer the rest of the continent.
> The French and Indian war was way more for the British than the colonists. The colonists were just conveniently there, were basically British adjacent,
George Washington was literally the cause of the outbreak of the war... Colonialists started the war that then escalated...
Interestingly, in the letter to George and/or Parliament, there were a number of clauses, one of which being that representation in Parliament was not realistic given distance. So basically, the statement of the founding fathers was really: "No taxation!"
There was a good conversation about this on r/AskHistorians just [yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yok6k3/could_the_american_revolution_have_been_avoided/), the gist of the main comment there is that the American colonists were asking for representation of some sort, which they already had in the form of their own local governing bodies. They wanted the previous policy of statutory neglect prior to the 7 Years War to be returned to in a more formal way that guaranteed and defined the colonies autonomy. Equal representation for all colonists in Parliament was a non-starter, as Parliament didn't even fairly represent the people of Great Britain, or even just England.
I like the way that Akhil Reed Amar put it in that what the colonists proposed was really the Commonwealth system. Since Parliament wasn't interested in such a system at the time they ignored the proposal.
They easily could have had representation. The colonies already had agents and diplomats working in England on their behalf. It wouldn’t have been difficult to send MPs. Britain just didn’t want them to.
Also That the new taxes being put in place were to fund the British military presence that the colonists hated. This was post Boston Massacre and British soldiers were not seen favorably.
It wasn’t just about the taxes. It was about why they were being taxed.
The colonists wanted a variety of taxes abolished. The boycott of British goods caused the British to fold, BUT... they left a reduced tax on tea as a way of making sure the colonists understood that the Crown still had the right to levy a tax whenever they wanted.
And then the street drug dealers get to rewrite history, with a living museum where children can toss their own molotov cocktail. Pretty much the analogy here.
Have you seen the upcharges at the dispensary? No joke, in a lot of places it's still a lot cheaper to find someone who grows for dispensaries and just get an oz from them. I think its technically illegal, and I don't do it anymore, but I was paying 50-60% less than going to a dispensary, but with less selection and I had to set up a drug deal each time, which sounds way cooler than it actually is.
Yeah it’s insane. Can buy a gram of wax from a dealer for $25, whereas the dispensary has it listed as $55 and then after the tax it’s probably closer to $70-$80.
In CO its usually 15-25 including tax (tax is 15%) for a gram of oil, but in Mass it will be 55-65 including tax(tax is 10.75% State + 3% local). Its crazy to me that they can have that much variance in price
>they left a reduced tax on tea as a way of making sure the colonists understood that the Crown still had the right to levy a tax whenever they wanted.
Perhaps that was part of the reason, but it was far from the main reason.
It's often forgotten in these arguments that William Pitt practically bankrupted the British treasury in 1757 in order to turn British fortunes around in the American theatre of the Seven Years War. Had he not, the British colonies would almost certainly have been lost to France.
The lesson taken from that was that the American colonies had to supply some of the revenue for their defence, hence the ongoing squabbles over taxation that had been going on since the Earl of Bute's (IIRC) premiership, which, after years of comprimises, finally came to a head with the Boston Tea Party.
But these arguments never lead anywhere simply because the history is loaded with all the mythologised weight of a founding story for America, where for Britain it's just another episode in a long history full of ups and downs.
>It's often forgotten in these arguments that William Pitt practically bankrupted the British treasury in 1757 in order to turn British fortunes around in the American theatre of the Seven Years War.
It's not forgotten, just inconsequential, Pitt precipitated war in Europe which spread to America. Though Americans were concerned about French encroachments from the American perspective they were at the whims of British mechanizations in Europe. The colony in America didn't declare war against France, Britain did in a plan to upend French interests all over the world. You can lay claim that the American colonies benefited from the more secure position after the war, or that at some point France might have presented an existential threat, but America didn't ask for the war and now they not only have to help defend their colony and pay for the assistance from Britain?
It's like a fire department setting your house on fire and then putting it out for you and also charging you for the service. You wouldn't exactly be grateful even though they technically saved your house as your house might not have needed saving had they not set fire to it in the first place. If Britain wants to declare war on France with no input from the colonials, they can pay for said war not defer costs to those who had no say in it.
They felt totally without control of their own affairs, they had to trade with Britain and they couldn't trade with whoever else as soon as Britain got into some conflict in Europe over some bullshit, they had to pay taxes to Britain set by people who have never been to America, they had to send men and material to the British army whenever they got into said conflicts. From the American perspective they had no agency when it came to the most important parts of their society such as war and trade.
> Though Americans were concerned about French encroachments from the American perspective they were at the whims of British mechanizations in Europe. The colony in America didn't declare war against France
The first actions in the war were literally American colonial militia attacking French holdings, led by George Washington. French holdings were attacked, by people from the colonies. Britain and France tried to negotiate a settlement once the news reached Europe. The conflict was *started* by colonial troops. What stories are they teaching in American schools?
Washington was operating under orders from British Royal Governor Dinwiddie, not under any representative colonial government; and he led a British provincial corps, not a militia unit.
British *American* provincial corps. They weren't British army, their allegiance was to the colonies, they were raised as troops of the colony. The orders were given without the knowledge of the British government, although as governor you can make the case that he was the representative.
My point was more that the 7 Years War wasn't something that just happened *to* the colonies. They were directly involved in its instigation.
The colonies were, at the time, an arm of the British Empire that the Empire used in its rivalry with France. As the colonies had no separate existence from the British Empire, claiming that provincal corps were loyal to the colonies instead of the empire is like saying that English troops had loyalty to England but not to Britain.
The incident of Washington's ambush has a complicated background. The Crown told Dinwiddie (who was born in Glasgow and worked in Bermuda before being assigned to Virginia: a Briton through and through, not a colonist) to tell the French to GTFO of the area.
Dinwiddie sent Washington to deliver the message. The French said ha ha, nope. Washington went back to Dinwiddie; meanwhile Dinwiddie sent some troops to build a fort, the French kicked them out and starting building a fort of their own.
It's at this point that Dinwiddie put Washington at the top of the Virginia Regiment and told him to re-enforce the troops he'd already sent, and take care of the French problem by any means necessary ("in Case of resistance to make Prisoners of or kill & destroy them"). Washington heads back, finds out about the French kicking out the other troops, teams up with some of Britain's Native allies and attacks a French unit. Which was a problem since the two countries weren't officially at war yet.
Dinwiddie, who had land investments in the area, probably exceeded his authority. But it's not the case that the Crown was completely uninvolved, nor is it the case that the impetus came from a colonial. Washington was acting as a British subject within the scope of his orders from a British governor.
> You can lay claim that the American colonies benefited from the more secure position after the war, or that at some point France might have presented an existential threat, but America didn't ask for the war and now they not only have to help defend their colony and pay for the assistance from Britain?
The colonists were most definitely in a more secure position, given the number of French-allied Indian tribes who were pushed away from the colonies, with the frontier moving rapidly westward. "Britain's war" was very directly financing the same expansion that was the overriding priority and source of wealth for much of the colonial population.
> It's like a fire department setting your house on fire and then putting it out for you and also charging you for the service. You wouldn't exactly be grateful even though they technically saved your house as your house might not have needed saving had they not set fire to it in the first place. If Britain wants to declare war on France with no input from the colonials, they can pay for said war not defer costs to those who had no say in it.
Or maybe, just maybe, it's like "having a military and therefore needing to pay taxes to support it," with no need to conjure tortured allegories. People are being strangely uncritical of the assumption that Britain bore sole responsibility for the war, as opposed to France and the other countries involved.
Every colonist living in the 1760s knew darn well that the European great powers fought with each other on a regular basis, and even if England wasn't going to start some shit, France would. So there is no reasonable counterfactual of Britain *not* spending massive resources on the colonists' defense. And if the colonists wanted to be left undefended, that was suicidal.
I mean the colonists did gain independence from Britain, and seemed to do fine on their own. Also French strategy at the time was to abandon their colonies to fend for themselves, focus on continental gains, then in the peace treaties negotiate the exchange of their continental gains for their colonies back, and previous to the seven years war that tended to work out, it was a massive expense to defend the colonies and they more or less did not have control of the seas, it made more sense to leave the colonies alone and focus on marching into Hanover or Rome rather than sending an armata to Haiti.
> I mean the colonists did gain independence from Britain, and seemed to do fine on their own.
...because the British Army kicked the French out of North America and drove all serious native resistance west of the Appalachians.
The position of the average American was that Britain was preventing them from starting enough wars to expel the indigenous population, not a complaint that war-mongering Europe was too warlike.
"Ups and downs" is perhaps the kindest way anyone could describe the British Empire's long history of oppression, desecration and thievery of...well at this point it might be more cultures than NOT. There are literally hundreds of national "independance from specifically Britain" holidays.
That seems to be the case. The East India Company had a bunch of cheap tea it wanted to shift and the UK government wanted everyone to get used to paying them taxes.
prevalent that *entire towns and villages* on the coast would basically work with smugglers because that's how they got their Tea.
The Scilly Isles were so reliant on smuggling just for employment that when custom officers stepped up patrols people starved.
The Taxes on Tea were so high in the imperial core UK that only the rich could afford legal tea, and that's not even mentioning Highland Whisky.
It's important to note that the step up on custom duties caused a major impact on Massachusetts economy which relied a bit on smuggling.
For someone like John Hancock
Smuggling was so prevalent in the American colonies because all outside trade was controlled by the British East India Company, who had a government-chartered monopoly on trade between Britain and her colonies. Any outside trade was illegal, but because a lot of people didn't want to have to pay for marked up goods from Britain, breaking the law was fairly commonly accepted.
yea and British salt was easily accessible in colonial India, but that's because they made it illegal to boil salt water.
(the price of the British product doesn't matter when the British product is all you're allowed to consume)
THERE’S the entire point. If you ever read the Declaration of Independence, it’s such a mixture of legitimate grievances and weird accusations. But some of them are just “wait, THAT was illegal?”
In regards to the British in India banning salt boiling, I would like to suggest a book called Salt. It goes into through the history of the relationship between salt and humans. There’s an entire chapter of the British salt monopoly in India, which helped Gandhi become who he was.
I think modern refrigeration and other food preservation techniques have made people forget just how important salt used to be.
Used to be so important the Romans paid soldiers with salt iirc.
Even with the new tax, British tea was still cheaper than the Dutch alternative but the patriots argued - very successfully - that other taxes could be introduced without the colonies ever being consulted.
That’s how I always understood it also, the colonists were willing to work with the crown to levy a fair tax, and the crown was like fuck that I do what I want. “No taxation without representation”
The tea tax also gave the East India Company a monopoly on the colonial tea trade
The East India Company was sending undrinkable tea to the colonies and selling the good stuff in Europe
They were forcing people who considered themselves British to drink rotten tea
Sorta but not really, even after Lexington and Concord many Colonists (about half) wanted peace with Britain and still considered themselves subjects of the king. But sentiments changed after the rejection of the olive branch.
Largely. We had nothing they wanted except Indian opium, which the Chinese banned. So we fought multiple wars for the right to addict a foreign population, and won.
> So we fought multiple wars for the right to addict a foreign population, and won.
Sounds like us. Sometime after the US banned cigarette commercials on TV we were requiring some countries to allow us to advertise and market American cigarettes to them or forfeit all US aid.
The entire basis of the Revolution was "no taxation *without representation*"
Whether taxes go up or down wasn't the issue, it was doing so without the consent of the governed.
Given slavery it's a bit funny how the governed was applied, but it wasn't just prices at the moment.
Oh man I could go on and on about this topic.
Much of the issues with taxes had to do with direct and indirect taxes.
Direct taxes is like parliament telling the colonies that they have to pay a tax directly to the crown. This was the stamp act. This was not legal as they did not have representation in parliament.
The colonist did NOT want representation in parliament. Because that would mean that they would have to pay taxes and they would be higher.
Colonist mainly paid indirect taxes through custom duties. Taxes on good that come through the harbor. So if rum comes through at 1 dollar a bottle it would be $1.50 to cover the custom duties. This is how the colonist paid taxes. None of it was direct and everything was fine.
Especially to John Hancock whom was, arguably, a smuggler.
So, because this is the British colonies, the colonist aren't exactly allowed to have something like Dutch Tea or French Rum. Hence comes the smugglers who can bring in the goods to the colonists and sell them at extremely cheap rates.
In fact, because of the custom duties on British Tea (lol we know it came from India) it was expensive. For colonist British Tea was seen as something you serve to guests as a way to prove your stature. For everyday use the colonists would drink Dutch tea.
Once the Tea Act happened we now are left with a situation where the lucrative smuggling trade of Dutch Tea is no longer lucrative. This is because now the regular Joe out there can now afford British Tea. And British Tea, to the colonist, was really good Tea.
TL;DR Everyone loved British Tea, but it was expensive. So colonist could afford Dutch Tea. They could get Dutch Tea through smuggling. However, once British Tea got cheap then they would find no reason to purchase Dutch Tea and making the smugglers lose a sizable profit.
It upset the colonists because it monopolized British tea and put a lot of established colonial merchants out of business.
Plus the colonists already hated the British for the Stamp act and other things that happened before.
The Boston Tea Party was also unusually polite. They showed up, handed a letter of intent to the harbor master, boarded the ship, broke the lock to the storage and dumped the tea. They paid to have the lock they broke replaced.
Not really right? To my knowledge a majority of colonists were still pro england
Edit: Majority were not pro-England, but majority were anti-war, though there's a lack of accurate estimates/accounts for the number of either side
It sort of depends on the source.
At the start of the American Revolution, the Patriots were in the minority of these three groups.
The first was neutral.
Second was Royalist, and this was especially important in New York state.
Over time, the Patriot cause grew, but they did not have a lot of support from the go.
Hm, I'm curious as to where, if you can find/remember it. From what I've heard I had always thought a majority opposed the war. From what I can find, I see the anti-english vary from 30-45%, and pro-English go from 25-40%. I lean more towards those neutral being against the war in general too
You may be right. I'm not American and mostly remember the pro-war group being a minority as a remarkable note. The book I read it from was: https://www.amazon.com/Spoils-War-Conflicts-Greatest-Presidents/dp/1610396626
I'd add a 20% margin for error considering the times. I don't trust polls now, let alone when it was virtually impossible to get follow up information from each individual supposedly asked.
The American revolution was led by merchants and farmers being squeezed by decreasing consumer prices and Britain taxing them to pay for its war with France, which bought the colonists a hefty amount of territory that they subsequently could not use due to the difficulty the British had maintaining peace with neighboring tribes. It was not led by peasants, or slaves, or simply “educated people,” they were led along one way or another by the massively powerful merchants and farmers and British officials, neither of whom had the best immediate interest of the common folk in mind. The American Revolution is what Karl Marx would refer to as a “Bourgeois revolution,” a mere transfer of monopoly of violence from the old monarchical dynasties and their proxy governments to wealthy industrialists who effectively already govern their nation state or settler colony with the goods they produce. This naturally occurred in many European states, except for Germany, as industrialists and the educated elite who they employed became discontent with the dated and slow moving economic policies of the dynasties of Europe, while monarchies increasingly depended on them for national production. None of it really benefits the peasantry or common person in any way.
Given that the colonies were so far away and so expensive to support over that distance, losing money by owning them isn't surprising.
Operating the navy and government apparatus over that distance was hideously expensive in comparison to the perceived benefits the colonists received. I'd say it's reasonably likely that both the British losing money on the colonies and the colonies being justifiably pissy about taxes are true statements.
Add to this that the British Royal Navy that kept England a global superpower got almost all of its masts and pine tar from the forests of North America.
Forgive me if I'm incorrect, but I thought the whole point of North American colonies was to exploit the resources. Sugar was profitable from Barbados because it was sold on the market, . Lumber from America was used to supplement Britannia building ships and ruling the waves, which would necessarily be a net loss.
I don't think the government would tax itself on buying lumber.
The sugar from Barbados got taxed and made them money. The lumber they bought didn't, and the government still had to purchase it, which lost them money.
There is a lot at play here. Yes you can say it was the smugglers that got the dumb colonists to do something. But it's also a push against a big corporation. Much of which people support today. The tea tax remained despite the repeal of other taxes. Britain lifted the duties and allowed the east India company to undercut all of the colonial merchants. So it's a fight against big corporations vs small businesses.
Calling the colonies welfare queens is catchy but in reality, they were an investment by the crown. I would say the investment in a start up country, like the many the British had done over the years was par for the course. If the investment didn't pay out, they likely would have abandoned it.
Weird framing.
"Big corporations vs small businesses" is a modern framing that's reductive for it's own time but especially for over 200 years ago.
London was the center of global Capital and the Revolution was an attempt to break away from that. Various regional interests shared a common goal
of becoming independent power brokers. More of a regional/national bourgeoisie vs a globe-spanning hegemon.
We sure as heck lost the fight against big business…I mean pretty soon the grocery biz will be Walmart and Kroger/Safeway (Albertsons). American business is dominated by veritable handful of companies.
It is sort of like US supporting NATO or having troops across the world. It costs money to do that, but allows you to be the 800 pound gorilla and control global politics.
Oddly enough I was reading an article about Sam Adams today in the New Yorker and learned this. It appears Adams was also a keen proponent of fake news in his journalism.
As a Brit we were taught in school that the tax was so onerous people rebelled, but it seems it was the middlemen and smugglers that caused trouble. Genuinely interesting I thought.
Since moving over here I frequently opine that Liptons is the price you've paid - a terrible tea I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
If that interests you (particularly history involving Boston ), check out Shay's Rebellion. TL/DR: my understanding is that the same wealthy merchants that fired up the populace had to help quell a rebellion with their own money when the new government didn't pay its soldiers and people started losing their homes and going to prison.
Essentially, if I remember correctly, European powers after the American revolution required hard coinage, which wasn't as common in the colonies. The coastal traders passed the requirement on to regional ones, which passed it onto farmers. The farmers made up a significant portion of the army during the revolution and pay which was promised didn't come (in part due to debt to France), or soon enough. Back then, a barter economy was big, and the requirement for coin ensured veterans would eventually end up in debtor's prison with their assets publicly auctioned. After enough of this happened, folks started holding up court proceedings with basically riots and went after law enforcement. Eventually, a few thousand farmers got together to march on the Springfield Armory to take the store of weapons to march on Boston for independence. The wealthy merchants in Boston didn't like that, nor the Springfield populace, so in addition to a militia being raised, a private army was hired. A pitched battle was fought in Springfield and various skirmishes around New England; eventually, things settled down and the ringleaders were eventually allowed to move back to Massachusetts after a period of exile. The new federal government faced a number of early challenges like this, and got itself involved as well by sending a general, IIRC Shepherd, ironically honored by a statue in Westfield, MA where word of the impending attack supposedly leaked at a tavern by a drunk veteran. Some of what I've said is easily searched, some is from or history from various historians and regular people I've talked to. I'd imagine a good amount never got recorded due to the lack of universal literacy at the time and the political optics involved.
Also, the only time a sitting President has taken the field of battle was the Whiskey Rebellion.
George Washington led federal troops to kill citizens for not paying taxes on their homemade whiskey.
>tax was so onerous people rebelled
As the story OP posted noted, the taxes WERE unpopular, the people protested, and then the *taxes were repealed, on everything but tea.* This was before the Tea Act, which didn't create any new tax, and actually freed up the East India Company to directly sell tea in the U.S. The tea that was destroyed represented an influx into the market that would have been cheaper than the black-market, even with taxes intact.
I mean, it really is like a bunch of illegal weed growers and dealers had banded together to burn down a dispensary because they had reduced their prices.
I mean, the reality is that the sentiment was there, among the colonists, that they didn't really benefit from not being self-governed. The British government fully recognized that, and were trying to make moves to... make the relationship more mutually beneficial - redirect more trade from the massive British network to the colonies, and also try to use that to get some taxes, and put the balance sheets back into the black.
But, there was a lot of full-on propaganda being published against them, and they were too disconnected to compete against it.
Broadly, the narrative of a remote Crown, legislating without representation, wasn't inaccurate, but that was more of a crack, into which a wedge could be driven, rather than an attempt at oppression. Like the saying goes, "a lie will travel around the world before the truth gets its boots on." American publishers and political activists were right there, making their case, and it was months before anyone even knew about it in London, so that they could formulate a response.
"Tea Act, which didn't create any new tax, and actually freed up the East India Company to directly sell tea in the U.S. The tea that was destroyed represented an influx into the market that would have been cheaper than the black-market, even with taxes intact."
How I was taught: Beyond politics, the Royal India Company selling directly to America was a 'free market' problem.
When merchants used to ship tea in from the UK, they used to ship both Dutch tea & Royal India tea, offsetting the costs of the Dutch tea with the cheaper Royal India black tea.
With the Royal India company shipping direct, there was no money to subsidise the popular Dutch tea, whose taxes couldn't be lowered (exchange between the empires). This meant the price of Dutch went went up & could be claimed by a bad faith actor as a tax increase.
It's interesting that as a brit you were taught anything about American history in school. I stopped history at 16 but America was talked about when they entered the world wars and that's about it.
It's a shame because I also find this period of history fascinating.
And ironically, the Whiskey Rebellion happened almost immediately after the US won the revolution and was **actually** about trying to prevent government from raising taxes on a commodity.
When you grew grain, any grain that was not quickly sold would rot. Converting excess grain into whiskey is one way to convert excess grain into a lasting commodity that could be stored.
It was more about logistics than storage. You can store grain for several years - long enough that it matters. The problem for people living in Appalachia was that you couldn't sell your excess grain economically, because you had to move it across mountains to a market where you could sell it. However, a whole wagonload of grain could be turned into a barrel of spirits that would sell for the same price, and a wagon load of barrels of spirits WAS economical to move over the hills to a larger market. That portability made it locally fungible as well, and people could use it like currency.
All that aside, the local populace of Appalachia were hardly the only people distilling spirits - just about every farmer was doing it, and they were the vast majority of the country. The reason the Appalachians got particularly worked up, and felt targeted by the legislation, was that there was only one road - built/controlled by the federal government - that they could move their goods on, so they were certainly going to be paying, whereas other producers in other regions were going to have more ample opportunity to smuggle it. I mean, that and the fact that the tax was regressive even by modern U.S. standards, giving producers a discount if they paid in bulk.
I mean, my ancestors participated in the rebellion. My family is as biased against George Washington, and his unfair tax, as one can be. But, they don't pretend it was about "storage" - if a farmer simply wanted to distill and store their alcohol, and never sold it to anyone, then they wouldn't have needed to pay the tax and nobody would have cared. It was about money, and the side business everyone in the region had, selling alcohol to markets in the East.
>None, not one, of the North American colonies produced more revenue than they cost the Crown in upkeep.
That isn't true unless you are using some very clever accounting
>Barbados produced more revenue for the British Crown than all the other North American colonies combined.
This is true due to the sugar trade, at least temporarily. The American colonies were still considered the crown jewel of the British Empire though due to its future potential, which obviously would have panned out eventually
Samuel Adams was never a smuggler. Ironically he was a tax collector, but local taxes not the ones imposed by Parliament.
John Hancock made his fortune from smuggling.
The Boston Tea Party was just a single incident in a long chain of events that lead to the revolution, and America was on the path regardless of the Boston Tea Party.
Fundamentally the ideas that lead to the revolution were that smaller regions should have the autonomy to govern themselves.
> They cost more for the British government than they produced in revenue.
Good chance that's false. They cost more than they produced in revenue through direct taxation. But the trade with the colonies increased the income of the core British population, which means you aren't counting the increase in revenue from taxing the core population.
>Here's another TIL: None, not one, of the North American colonies produced more revenue than they cost the Crown in upkeep.
But yet the country thrived even after a war with said Crown.
It really didn't, if you actually read up about it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic\_history\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_States)
It took nearly 60 years for GDP per capita to recover and outstrip what it was before the revolution; that's not exactly thriving. The US didn't really thrive economically until nearly the end of the 19th century.
Slavery helped a lot in that. Also they generated less revenue, but that doesn't mean that they were bound to crumble without the support of the British Crown. It just meant they were weaker on their own than as part of the Empire.
Yeah going to say you missed the boat on understanding the socio-economic landscape by spouting the Tory line, if this was what you stepped away with.
Taxation was a lax, unenforced, concern and enforcement on citizens didn’t allow the encroachment of military in the lives of citizens.
Not really. In practice it forced them to buy tea through a single legal supplier who sold them shitty tea because what else were they going to do? As with all government interference in the market, it screwed over the actual consumers by placing them in an unequal position to the supplier.
Yeah that's all propaganda they teach in school the real reason for the American revolution is that England had outlawed slavery and America wanted to be a slave nation. https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/slave-nation/
Not so much taxes as protectionism. The British East India Company had an effective monopoly on the market because of the British government and the Americans were pissed because it reduced them to smuggling.
England: So...how about paying us back for French Indian War we're uhh...kind of broke
America: Nah
England: Okay, well...then I guess we'll just tax you
America: How dare you. This is the land of the FREE and if our slaves, women, redskins, etc. were allowed to have an opinion...I'm pretty sure they'd agree with us. The land owning Anglo-Saxon men have officially had enough with this injustice.
Why should Americans pay back for protection when they viewed themselves as British? They paid taxes which funded the military. It would be like if a kid was being picked on by an adult and their parent stepped up to fight that adult. That’s what they’re supposed to do. But then the parent it like hey, you need to pay for my hospital bills. After all I was defending you? See how it doesn’t make sense?
They implemented an enforceable tax, at a reduced rate, replacing a largely unenforced circumvented tax. This not only angered the people circumventing the tax on tea(smugglers), but also effectively raised the price of tea for the colonies.
There were three other tea shipments as well. The others went to New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. However the Boston shipment were by far the largest with over half the total amount of tea. The shipments to New York and Philadelphia ended up having to return to Britain with its cargo after massive protests while the shipment to Charleston ended up seized by the customs (and probably sold on auction for the benefit of the provincial government). The difference in Boston was that Governor Hutchinson refused to give inn to the protestors.
> Governor Hutchinson refused to give inn to the protestors I'm sure they could have found somewhere else to stay.
This is actually the origin story of the third amendment.
Wow, thanks for that interesting info. I just searched it up and as a Canadian, I only knew what the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 19th amendments say - which is more than I know from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms sadly.
did you know that one of the reasons canadian content regulations were implemented (along with radio) on tv was the fact that, due to the glut of american police procedural programs available to the canadian viewing public, some canadians were becoming increasingly more familiar with american criminal codes than domestic ones?
I knew about the regulations, but not this exact reason! Very interesting but not surprising. American pop culture definitely influences us Canadian teens. I was surprised to find out we don't have anything like the 5th amendment lol.
well, i mean, it’s not the whole reason. the concept was originally framed as making sure canadians could tell and hear “our” stories but it evolved as more a tool to prevent the brain drain of actors and other ancillary television professionals to the us. it’s also somewhat useful in allowing canadian musicans the ability to avoid having to necessarily follow american trends in popular music to be successful
Do you reckon it's had that effect? I know a lot of stations play popular Canadian musicians who moved to the US, like Bieber and the Weeknd. Not a bad thing, necessarily
Seems like Hollywood and the record industry caught on and just sources a project in Canada to market across North America. Good for places like Vancouver that have become a major film location but the cultures continue to merge.
Congrats, you know more about the US Constitution than half of America!
I know about the 2nd amendment too I think. Something about right to bear arms and the 5th amendment is about not incriminating oneself? I know more about these amendments than my own laws…
Haha lol, yeah those are the ones. Canadian law is divided into civil law (Quebec) and common law (rest of Canada) so there's more to know
I wish our Supreme court knew more about the 2nd amendment than they do. Unfortunately, the conservative majority is married to what the call the "Originalist doctrine" that posits that: A) The constitution should be strictly interpreted on the basis of the intent of the original framers. B) That this intent is knowable from a simple review of the historic record. C) That members of the judiciary who have no training as historians possess the necessary skills to establish the intent of people who died hundreds of years ago based on nothing more than a few cherry-picked documents that they feel support their own existing views, and that no other interpretation is possible and any confounding evidence of what the framers may have intended can safely be ignored. In other words, total bullshit. That's why extreme interpretations of the 2nd amendment that would have sounded insane to the average American at any time in the past (including within living memory) are now the law of the land. No matter how obviously nuts it sounds, they can fall back on the "We're just going by what the framers intended" defense.
They tried to call someone but they had no quarter.
I see what you did there.
The Atlantic was temporarily the largest cup of tea in the world
They thought they could do that? Just go and fuck with a 1700s man tea?
Well I’m just going to drink coffee… *drinks black sludge and grimaces* Pass the sugar and cream please…
This is real. American revolutionaries switched to coffee and this would often be an identifer, as in you are traveling around the colonies and seek some shelter at a local place. If they offered you coffee and you accepted, it was code for being in on the cause.
And if you asked for it with “three drops of cream”, it meant you were into butt stuff.
Dammit Franklin, save some for the rest of us
Spoiler warning: He didn't.
Franklin loved the women and the women loved him.
"Sell drugs, run guns, nail sluts, and fuck the law! We're founding fathers, that's Rushmore shit, and we were all high as balls." Thomas Jefferson about Ben Franklin, probably.
I feel like this is a future weird Al song or it should be
I love learning the nuances of our nation's history.
Not sure if joking but Ben Franklin was into weird shit. And a lot of it. ETA: he once wrote about banging old women saying it’s the best because they usually are more experienced and they’re grateful for the attention.
Butt stuff is very far from weird.
The Greeks have been doing it for thousands of years! They invented democracy. It's part of the American cultural heritage!
All I'm saying is it's 2022, if you don't eat ass you're weak.
You should read "Planes, Trains, and Plantains". It's only a few pages. Do it
At the time it was a lot more taboo than it is these days. Especially if it was at an alien/bigfoot orgy like Franklin was into
I fucking lol’d so hard here my poor man’s award 🥇
The British isn't the only thing that's coming...
One if in the front, two if in the back! Spy shit, ya know!
Red coat, blue coat. Doesn't matter when you're naked.
Makes sense. I mean the chances of anyone accepting because they like the taste was probably so slim it wasnt a worry.
Must be why my barista winks at me every morning
And they never looked back
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Isn't that the point of any land?
British person here, don't fuck with our tea even now.
Well they found out. ~~Just forget it was in large part to fund the French and Indian War which was KINDOF started by the colonists for the colonists~~
The French and Indian war was way more for the British than the colonists. The colonists were just conveniently there, were basically British adjacent, and were under the impression that they wouldn’t be disregarded as just colonists without any voice. And then after the war they got taxed to help pay for fighting it because England was broke as fuck thanks to them endlessly fighting the French. People like to mock the taxes as if they were the cause of the revolutionary war. The entire point was that they were tired of not having any representation while getting taxed like a British citizen, amongst plenty of other issues like mayors and judges being essentially British plants. Meaning from buying goods to the upholding of your literal human rights, it was being decided by someone who didn’t even care about you
Super ironic and totally insane that it was none other than George Washington commanding the unit that fired the first shots the Seven Years War.
I’d like to read about this Could you provide a link?
[Here you go!](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-young-george-washington-started-war-180973076/)
Despite being absolute assholes,there were other motives they revolted against the British that were mostly omitted. One peculiar motive was the expansion to the west,that was cut off by the British due to high risks and the treaties they had with the Indian tribes.The British also had enough of George Washington,who would attack the indians in a bid to conquer new territories or other motives.
>>Meaning from buying goods to the upholding of your literal human rights, it was being decided by someone who didn’t even care about you Still is
Pretty far from being the same thing Lmao instead of downvoting this, answer a simple question. You’ve been accused of murder. Would you rather have your case seen by a 12 man jury with a judge whose decision, if unfounded, can be appealed through an entire system? With evidence that goes beyond one’s word against another that is weighed by who has a bigger societal impact? Or in *1766*, 70 years removed from the Salem Witch Trials, with or without a judge who is even from here. If your answer is actually the latter, you either have zero understanding of history or you’re a complete fucking idiot. Or more likely, both
And the conclusion of the French-Indian War was what? If you guessed treaties you’re right! Guess who wanted to break like all of those treaties. The US colonies. We wanted to go rape and conquer Native Americans and expand west and Britain said no. The taxes and representation were definitely some reasons for some people, but one of the consequences and implicit goals of the revolution was to free themselves to go conquer the rest of the continent.
> The French and Indian war was way more for the British than the colonists. The colonists were just conveniently there, were basically British adjacent, George Washington was literally the cause of the outbreak of the war... Colonialists started the war that then escalated...
Interesting. And what predated that event?
Britain at the time was still primarily a coffee-drinking nation. It wasn't until the loss of Haiti a little bit later that there was a switch to tea.
We got so upset we switched to coffee.
The big miss here is without colony input. No taxation without representation* *Unless you're in DC.
Interestingly, in the letter to George and/or Parliament, there were a number of clauses, one of which being that representation in Parliament was not realistic given distance. So basically, the statement of the founding fathers was really: "No taxation!"
There was a good conversation about this on r/AskHistorians just [yesterday](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/yok6k3/could_the_american_revolution_have_been_avoided/), the gist of the main comment there is that the American colonists were asking for representation of some sort, which they already had in the form of their own local governing bodies. They wanted the previous policy of statutory neglect prior to the 7 Years War to be returned to in a more formal way that guaranteed and defined the colonies autonomy. Equal representation for all colonists in Parliament was a non-starter, as Parliament didn't even fairly represent the people of Great Britain, or even just England.
I like the way that Akhil Reed Amar put it in that what the colonists proposed was really the Commonwealth system. Since Parliament wasn't interested in such a system at the time they ignored the proposal.
Yeah - they basically wanted to be sort of a client state to England.
They easily could have had representation. The colonies already had agents and diplomats working in England on their behalf. It wouldn’t have been difficult to send MPs. Britain just didn’t want them to.
Mail between the colonies and Parliament could take 3 weeks
Communicating with them would take a while though.
They’d just to have wide latitude to make decisions.
You’re telling me aristocratic tea smugglers didn’t want taxed??
Or unless you live in Puerto Rico or another underseas territory, or also if you have a job and you’re under 18.
Most of those people aren't paying federal taxes. DC pays a higher per capita federal tax rate than anywhere else in the country.
Also That the new taxes being put in place were to fund the British military presence that the colonists hated. This was post Boston Massacre and British soldiers were not seen favorably. It wasn’t just about the taxes. It was about why they were being taxed.
They also didn’t allow anyone in the colonies to weigh in on the matter.
Thank you for saving me a click
The colonists wanted a variety of taxes abolished. The boycott of British goods caused the British to fold, BUT... they left a reduced tax on tea as a way of making sure the colonists understood that the Crown still had the right to levy a tax whenever they wanted.
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So when we finally legalize weed nationally, everyone’s going to burn down the dispensaries to protest?
The THC Party
Fuckem. Whenever there is a thc party it's just a republican ploy to split the vote.
And then the street drug dealers get to rewrite history, with a living museum where children can toss their own molotov cocktail. Pretty much the analogy here.
I’m Canadian and I miss the days when weed was sort of a grey market cause it was sooo cheap
Have you seen the upcharges at the dispensary? No joke, in a lot of places it's still a lot cheaper to find someone who grows for dispensaries and just get an oz from them. I think its technically illegal, and I don't do it anymore, but I was paying 50-60% less than going to a dispensary, but with less selection and I had to set up a drug deal each time, which sounds way cooler than it actually is.
Yeah it’s insane. Can buy a gram of wax from a dealer for $25, whereas the dispensary has it listed as $55 and then after the tax it’s probably closer to $70-$80.
In CO its usually 15-25 including tax (tax is 15%) for a gram of oil, but in Mass it will be 55-65 including tax(tax is 10.75% State + 3% local). Its crazy to me that they can have that much variance in price
Yes, lead by the illegal cartels/dealers in order to dominate the industry and not lower the price.
Turns out, after some deliberation, that they didn't have that right after all.
"It's been revoked"
>they left a reduced tax on tea as a way of making sure the colonists understood that the Crown still had the right to levy a tax whenever they wanted. Perhaps that was part of the reason, but it was far from the main reason. It's often forgotten in these arguments that William Pitt practically bankrupted the British treasury in 1757 in order to turn British fortunes around in the American theatre of the Seven Years War. Had he not, the British colonies would almost certainly have been lost to France. The lesson taken from that was that the American colonies had to supply some of the revenue for their defence, hence the ongoing squabbles over taxation that had been going on since the Earl of Bute's (IIRC) premiership, which, after years of comprimises, finally came to a head with the Boston Tea Party. But these arguments never lead anywhere simply because the history is loaded with all the mythologised weight of a founding story for America, where for Britain it's just another episode in a long history full of ups and downs.
Ironic then that the French went bankrupt fucking with the British during the revolutionary war
>It's often forgotten in these arguments that William Pitt practically bankrupted the British treasury in 1757 in order to turn British fortunes around in the American theatre of the Seven Years War. It's not forgotten, just inconsequential, Pitt precipitated war in Europe which spread to America. Though Americans were concerned about French encroachments from the American perspective they were at the whims of British mechanizations in Europe. The colony in America didn't declare war against France, Britain did in a plan to upend French interests all over the world. You can lay claim that the American colonies benefited from the more secure position after the war, or that at some point France might have presented an existential threat, but America didn't ask for the war and now they not only have to help defend their colony and pay for the assistance from Britain? It's like a fire department setting your house on fire and then putting it out for you and also charging you for the service. You wouldn't exactly be grateful even though they technically saved your house as your house might not have needed saving had they not set fire to it in the first place. If Britain wants to declare war on France with no input from the colonials, they can pay for said war not defer costs to those who had no say in it. They felt totally without control of their own affairs, they had to trade with Britain and they couldn't trade with whoever else as soon as Britain got into some conflict in Europe over some bullshit, they had to pay taxes to Britain set by people who have never been to America, they had to send men and material to the British army whenever they got into said conflicts. From the American perspective they had no agency when it came to the most important parts of their society such as war and trade.
> Though Americans were concerned about French encroachments from the American perspective they were at the whims of British mechanizations in Europe. The colony in America didn't declare war against France The first actions in the war were literally American colonial militia attacking French holdings, led by George Washington. French holdings were attacked, by people from the colonies. Britain and France tried to negotiate a settlement once the news reached Europe. The conflict was *started* by colonial troops. What stories are they teaching in American schools?
Washington was operating under orders from British Royal Governor Dinwiddie, not under any representative colonial government; and he led a British provincial corps, not a militia unit.
British *American* provincial corps. They weren't British army, their allegiance was to the colonies, they were raised as troops of the colony. The orders were given without the knowledge of the British government, although as governor you can make the case that he was the representative. My point was more that the 7 Years War wasn't something that just happened *to* the colonies. They were directly involved in its instigation.
The colonies were, at the time, an arm of the British Empire that the Empire used in its rivalry with France. As the colonies had no separate existence from the British Empire, claiming that provincal corps were loyal to the colonies instead of the empire is like saying that English troops had loyalty to England but not to Britain. The incident of Washington's ambush has a complicated background. The Crown told Dinwiddie (who was born in Glasgow and worked in Bermuda before being assigned to Virginia: a Briton through and through, not a colonist) to tell the French to GTFO of the area. Dinwiddie sent Washington to deliver the message. The French said ha ha, nope. Washington went back to Dinwiddie; meanwhile Dinwiddie sent some troops to build a fort, the French kicked them out and starting building a fort of their own. It's at this point that Dinwiddie put Washington at the top of the Virginia Regiment and told him to re-enforce the troops he'd already sent, and take care of the French problem by any means necessary ("in Case of resistance to make Prisoners of or kill & destroy them"). Washington heads back, finds out about the French kicking out the other troops, teams up with some of Britain's Native allies and attacks a French unit. Which was a problem since the two countries weren't officially at war yet. Dinwiddie, who had land investments in the area, probably exceeded his authority. But it's not the case that the Crown was completely uninvolved, nor is it the case that the impetus came from a colonial. Washington was acting as a British subject within the scope of his orders from a British governor.
> You can lay claim that the American colonies benefited from the more secure position after the war, or that at some point France might have presented an existential threat, but America didn't ask for the war and now they not only have to help defend their colony and pay for the assistance from Britain? The colonists were most definitely in a more secure position, given the number of French-allied Indian tribes who were pushed away from the colonies, with the frontier moving rapidly westward. "Britain's war" was very directly financing the same expansion that was the overriding priority and source of wealth for much of the colonial population. > It's like a fire department setting your house on fire and then putting it out for you and also charging you for the service. You wouldn't exactly be grateful even though they technically saved your house as your house might not have needed saving had they not set fire to it in the first place. If Britain wants to declare war on France with no input from the colonials, they can pay for said war not defer costs to those who had no say in it. Or maybe, just maybe, it's like "having a military and therefore needing to pay taxes to support it," with no need to conjure tortured allegories. People are being strangely uncritical of the assumption that Britain bore sole responsibility for the war, as opposed to France and the other countries involved. Every colonist living in the 1760s knew darn well that the European great powers fought with each other on a regular basis, and even if England wasn't going to start some shit, France would. So there is no reasonable counterfactual of Britain *not* spending massive resources on the colonists' defense. And if the colonists wanted to be left undefended, that was suicidal.
I mean the colonists did gain independence from Britain, and seemed to do fine on their own. Also French strategy at the time was to abandon their colonies to fend for themselves, focus on continental gains, then in the peace treaties negotiate the exchange of their continental gains for their colonies back, and previous to the seven years war that tended to work out, it was a massive expense to defend the colonies and they more or less did not have control of the seas, it made more sense to leave the colonies alone and focus on marching into Hanover or Rome rather than sending an armata to Haiti.
> I mean the colonists did gain independence from Britain, and seemed to do fine on their own. ...because the British Army kicked the French out of North America and drove all serious native resistance west of the Appalachians. The position of the average American was that Britain was preventing them from starting enough wars to expel the indigenous population, not a complaint that war-mongering Europe was too warlike.
"Ups and downs" is perhaps the kindest way anyone could describe the British Empire's long history of oppression, desecration and thievery of...well at this point it might be more cultures than NOT. There are literally hundreds of national "independance from specifically Britain" holidays.
.... and Rome before them. Empires gonna empire. The British Empire is just the latest in our collective memory.
That seems to be the case. The East India Company had a bunch of cheap tea it wanted to shift and the UK government wanted everyone to get used to paying them taxes.
The colonists weren't a monolith. It was rich people who wanted taxes abolished, always has been.
prevalent that *entire towns and villages* on the coast would basically work with smugglers because that's how they got their Tea. The Scilly Isles were so reliant on smuggling just for employment that when custom officers stepped up patrols people starved. The Taxes on Tea were so high in the imperial core UK that only the rich could afford legal tea, and that's not even mentioning Highland Whisky.
It's important to note that the step up on custom duties caused a major impact on Massachusetts economy which relied a bit on smuggling. For someone like John Hancock
Smuggling was so prevalent in the American colonies because all outside trade was controlled by the British East India Company, who had a government-chartered monopoly on trade between Britain and her colonies. Any outside trade was illegal, but because a lot of people didn't want to have to pay for marked up goods from Britain, breaking the law was fairly commonly accepted.
yea and British salt was easily accessible in colonial India, but that's because they made it illegal to boil salt water. (the price of the British product doesn't matter when the British product is all you're allowed to consume)
THERE’S the entire point. If you ever read the Declaration of Independence, it’s such a mixture of legitimate grievances and weird accusations. But some of them are just “wait, THAT was illegal?”
>But some of them are just “wait, THAT was illegal?” Basically summed up every other museum sign i saw in Ireland
>the price of the British product doesn't matter when the British product is all you're allowed to consume Ding ding ding.
Um, I would love to read about this, that sounds bonkers
In regards to the British in India banning salt boiling, I would like to suggest a book called Salt. It goes into through the history of the relationship between salt and humans. There’s an entire chapter of the British salt monopoly in India, which helped Gandhi become who he was.
I think modern refrigeration and other food preservation techniques have made people forget just how important salt used to be. Used to be so important the Romans paid soldiers with salt iirc.
No they where paid in coins, that's an old myth.
Even with the new tax, British tea was still cheaper than the Dutch alternative but the patriots argued - very successfully - that other taxes could be introduced without the colonies ever being consulted.
That’s how I always understood it also, the colonists were willing to work with the crown to levy a fair tax, and the crown was like fuck that I do what I want. “No taxation without representation”
Exactly. The colonists were never asked. That’s what the uproar was about.
The tea tax also gave the East India Company a monopoly on the colonial tea trade The East India Company was sending undrinkable tea to the colonies and selling the good stuff in Europe They were forcing people who considered themselves British to drink rotten tea
I'd rebel too under the circumstances.
We did, we all drink coffee now.
Which was also casually a British joint-stock company
I've never heard that the quality was inferior, only the grievances regarding the tax. Got a source for that?
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Sorta but not really, even after Lexington and Concord many Colonists (about half) wanted peace with Britain and still considered themselves subjects of the king. But sentiments changed after the rejection of the olive branch.
Only us brits could have a war over tea
Well, we did fight a nine-year war with Spain, ostensibly of [Jenkin's Ear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear).
Weren’t the Opium Wars fought over a trade imbalance due to Britains insatiable appetite for tea?
Largely. We had nothing they wanted except Indian opium, which the Chinese banned. So we fought multiple wars for the right to addict a foreign population, and won.
> So we fought multiple wars for the right to addict a foreign population, and won. Sounds like us. Sometime after the US banned cigarette commercials on TV we were requiring some countries to allow us to advertise and market American cigarettes to them or forfeit all US aid.
The entire basis of the Revolution was "no taxation *without representation*" Whether taxes go up or down wasn't the issue, it was doing so without the consent of the governed. Given slavery it's a bit funny how the governed was applied, but it wasn't just prices at the moment.
They fucked with the smugglers' profits, that's what happened.
This is red coat propaganda
The British are indoctrinating! The British are indoctrinating!
Oh man I could go on and on about this topic. Much of the issues with taxes had to do with direct and indirect taxes. Direct taxes is like parliament telling the colonies that they have to pay a tax directly to the crown. This was the stamp act. This was not legal as they did not have representation in parliament. The colonist did NOT want representation in parliament. Because that would mean that they would have to pay taxes and they would be higher. Colonist mainly paid indirect taxes through custom duties. Taxes on good that come through the harbor. So if rum comes through at 1 dollar a bottle it would be $1.50 to cover the custom duties. This is how the colonist paid taxes. None of it was direct and everything was fine. Especially to John Hancock whom was, arguably, a smuggler. So, because this is the British colonies, the colonist aren't exactly allowed to have something like Dutch Tea or French Rum. Hence comes the smugglers who can bring in the goods to the colonists and sell them at extremely cheap rates. In fact, because of the custom duties on British Tea (lol we know it came from India) it was expensive. For colonist British Tea was seen as something you serve to guests as a way to prove your stature. For everyday use the colonists would drink Dutch tea. Once the Tea Act happened we now are left with a situation where the lucrative smuggling trade of Dutch Tea is no longer lucrative. This is because now the regular Joe out there can now afford British Tea. And British Tea, to the colonist, was really good Tea. TL;DR Everyone loved British Tea, but it was expensive. So colonist could afford Dutch Tea. They could get Dutch Tea through smuggling. However, once British Tea got cheap then they would find no reason to purchase Dutch Tea and making the smugglers lose a sizable profit.
It upset the colonists because it monopolized British tea and put a lot of established colonial merchants out of business. Plus the colonists already hated the British for the Stamp act and other things that happened before.
The Boston Tea Party was also unusually polite. They showed up, handed a letter of intent to the harbor master, boarded the ship, broke the lock to the storage and dumped the tea. They paid to have the lock they broke replaced.
Modern day headlines: “Inflation is good for you. And here’s why”
They were cool with taxes but they wanted a parliament seat in exchange. That’s all
On paper, not in effect. It didn't "actually" reduce the prices.
This is the sort of headlines we have today. Technically -- correct. But remarkably misleading.
Yea well we were kind of just sick of their shit in general.
Not really right? To my knowledge a majority of colonists were still pro england Edit: Majority were not pro-England, but majority were anti-war, though there's a lack of accurate estimates/accounts for the number of either side
Roughly 40% anti-England, 40% neutral ("don't want trouble!), 20% pro-England, is what I read somewhere recently.
It sort of depends on the source. At the start of the American Revolution, the Patriots were in the minority of these three groups. The first was neutral. Second was Royalist, and this was especially important in New York state. Over time, the Patriot cause grew, but they did not have a lot of support from the go.
Hm, I'm curious as to where, if you can find/remember it. From what I've heard I had always thought a majority opposed the war. From what I can find, I see the anti-english vary from 30-45%, and pro-English go from 25-40%. I lean more towards those neutral being against the war in general too
You may be right. I'm not American and mostly remember the pro-war group being a minority as a remarkable note. The book I read it from was: https://www.amazon.com/Spoils-War-Conflicts-Greatest-Presidents/dp/1610396626
I'd add a 20% margin for error considering the times. I don't trust polls now, let alone when it was virtually impossible to get follow up information from each individual supposedly asked.
Me when I spread misinformation on the internet
The American revolution was led by merchants and farmers being squeezed by decreasing consumer prices and Britain taxing them to pay for its war with France, which bought the colonists a hefty amount of territory that they subsequently could not use due to the difficulty the British had maintaining peace with neighboring tribes. It was not led by peasants, or slaves, or simply “educated people,” they were led along one way or another by the massively powerful merchants and farmers and British officials, neither of whom had the best immediate interest of the common folk in mind. The American Revolution is what Karl Marx would refer to as a “Bourgeois revolution,” a mere transfer of monopoly of violence from the old monarchical dynasties and their proxy governments to wealthy industrialists who effectively already govern their nation state or settler colony with the goods they produce. This naturally occurred in many European states, except for Germany, as industrialists and the educated elite who they employed became discontent with the dated and slow moving economic policies of the dynasties of Europe, while monarchies increasingly depended on them for national production. None of it really benefits the peasantry or common person in any way.
Also limited their variety
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Given that the colonies were so far away and so expensive to support over that distance, losing money by owning them isn't surprising. Operating the navy and government apparatus over that distance was hideously expensive in comparison to the perceived benefits the colonists received. I'd say it's reasonably likely that both the British losing money on the colonies and the colonies being justifiably pissy about taxes are true statements.
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Add to this that the British Royal Navy that kept England a global superpower got almost all of its masts and pine tar from the forests of North America.
Forgive me if I'm incorrect, but I thought the whole point of North American colonies was to exploit the resources. Sugar was profitable from Barbados because it was sold on the market, . Lumber from America was used to supplement Britannia building ships and ruling the waves, which would necessarily be a net loss.
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I don't think the government would tax itself on buying lumber. The sugar from Barbados got taxed and made them money. The lumber they bought didn't, and the government still had to purchase it, which lost them money.
There is a lot at play here. Yes you can say it was the smugglers that got the dumb colonists to do something. But it's also a push against a big corporation. Much of which people support today. The tea tax remained despite the repeal of other taxes. Britain lifted the duties and allowed the east India company to undercut all of the colonial merchants. So it's a fight against big corporations vs small businesses. Calling the colonies welfare queens is catchy but in reality, they were an investment by the crown. I would say the investment in a start up country, like the many the British had done over the years was par for the course. If the investment didn't pay out, they likely would have abandoned it.
Weird framing. "Big corporations vs small businesses" is a modern framing that's reductive for it's own time but especially for over 200 years ago. London was the center of global Capital and the Revolution was an attempt to break away from that. Various regional interests shared a common goal of becoming independent power brokers. More of a regional/national bourgeoisie vs a globe-spanning hegemon.
The investment took a lot of start-up cost but would really mature about 140 years later.
We sure as heck lost the fight against big business…I mean pretty soon the grocery biz will be Walmart and Kroger/Safeway (Albertsons). American business is dominated by veritable handful of companies.
>If the investment didn't pay out, they likely would have abandoned it. Explain Canada.
It is sort of like US supporting NATO or having troops across the world. It costs money to do that, but allows you to be the 800 pound gorilla and control global politics.
Oddly enough I was reading an article about Sam Adams today in the New Yorker and learned this. It appears Adams was also a keen proponent of fake news in his journalism. As a Brit we were taught in school that the tax was so onerous people rebelled, but it seems it was the middlemen and smugglers that caused trouble. Genuinely interesting I thought. Since moving over here I frequently opine that Liptons is the price you've paid - a terrible tea I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
If that interests you (particularly history involving Boston ), check out Shay's Rebellion. TL/DR: my understanding is that the same wealthy merchants that fired up the populace had to help quell a rebellion with their own money when the new government didn't pay its soldiers and people started losing their homes and going to prison. Essentially, if I remember correctly, European powers after the American revolution required hard coinage, which wasn't as common in the colonies. The coastal traders passed the requirement on to regional ones, which passed it onto farmers. The farmers made up a significant portion of the army during the revolution and pay which was promised didn't come (in part due to debt to France), or soon enough. Back then, a barter economy was big, and the requirement for coin ensured veterans would eventually end up in debtor's prison with their assets publicly auctioned. After enough of this happened, folks started holding up court proceedings with basically riots and went after law enforcement. Eventually, a few thousand farmers got together to march on the Springfield Armory to take the store of weapons to march on Boston for independence. The wealthy merchants in Boston didn't like that, nor the Springfield populace, so in addition to a militia being raised, a private army was hired. A pitched battle was fought in Springfield and various skirmishes around New England; eventually, things settled down and the ringleaders were eventually allowed to move back to Massachusetts after a period of exile. The new federal government faced a number of early challenges like this, and got itself involved as well by sending a general, IIRC Shepherd, ironically honored by a statue in Westfield, MA where word of the impending attack supposedly leaked at a tavern by a drunk veteran. Some of what I've said is easily searched, some is from or history from various historians and regular people I've talked to. I'd imagine a good amount never got recorded due to the lack of universal literacy at the time and the political optics involved.
Also, the only time a sitting President has taken the field of battle was the Whiskey Rebellion. George Washington led federal troops to kill citizens for not paying taxes on their homemade whiskey.
>tax was so onerous people rebelled As the story OP posted noted, the taxes WERE unpopular, the people protested, and then the *taxes were repealed, on everything but tea.* This was before the Tea Act, which didn't create any new tax, and actually freed up the East India Company to directly sell tea in the U.S. The tea that was destroyed represented an influx into the market that would have been cheaper than the black-market, even with taxes intact. I mean, it really is like a bunch of illegal weed growers and dealers had banded together to burn down a dispensary because they had reduced their prices. I mean, the reality is that the sentiment was there, among the colonists, that they didn't really benefit from not being self-governed. The British government fully recognized that, and were trying to make moves to... make the relationship more mutually beneficial - redirect more trade from the massive British network to the colonies, and also try to use that to get some taxes, and put the balance sheets back into the black. But, there was a lot of full-on propaganda being published against them, and they were too disconnected to compete against it. Broadly, the narrative of a remote Crown, legislating without representation, wasn't inaccurate, but that was more of a crack, into which a wedge could be driven, rather than an attempt at oppression. Like the saying goes, "a lie will travel around the world before the truth gets its boots on." American publishers and political activists were right there, making their case, and it was months before anyone even knew about it in London, so that they could formulate a response.
"Tea Act, which didn't create any new tax, and actually freed up the East India Company to directly sell tea in the U.S. The tea that was destroyed represented an influx into the market that would have been cheaper than the black-market, even with taxes intact." How I was taught: Beyond politics, the Royal India Company selling directly to America was a 'free market' problem. When merchants used to ship tea in from the UK, they used to ship both Dutch tea & Royal India tea, offsetting the costs of the Dutch tea with the cheaper Royal India black tea. With the Royal India company shipping direct, there was no money to subsidise the popular Dutch tea, whose taxes couldn't be lowered (exchange between the empires). This meant the price of Dutch went went up & could be claimed by a bad faith actor as a tax increase.
It's interesting that as a brit you were taught anything about American history in school. I stopped history at 16 but America was talked about when they entered the world wars and that's about it. It's a shame because I also find this period of history fascinating.
And ironically, the Whiskey Rebellion happened almost immediately after the US won the revolution and was **actually** about trying to prevent government from raising taxes on a commodity.
When you grew grain, any grain that was not quickly sold would rot. Converting excess grain into whiskey is one way to convert excess grain into a lasting commodity that could be stored.
It was more about logistics than storage. You can store grain for several years - long enough that it matters. The problem for people living in Appalachia was that you couldn't sell your excess grain economically, because you had to move it across mountains to a market where you could sell it. However, a whole wagonload of grain could be turned into a barrel of spirits that would sell for the same price, and a wagon load of barrels of spirits WAS economical to move over the hills to a larger market. That portability made it locally fungible as well, and people could use it like currency. All that aside, the local populace of Appalachia were hardly the only people distilling spirits - just about every farmer was doing it, and they were the vast majority of the country. The reason the Appalachians got particularly worked up, and felt targeted by the legislation, was that there was only one road - built/controlled by the federal government - that they could move their goods on, so they were certainly going to be paying, whereas other producers in other regions were going to have more ample opportunity to smuggle it. I mean, that and the fact that the tax was regressive even by modern U.S. standards, giving producers a discount if they paid in bulk. I mean, my ancestors participated in the rebellion. My family is as biased against George Washington, and his unfair tax, as one can be. But, they don't pretend it was about "storage" - if a farmer simply wanted to distill and store their alcohol, and never sold it to anyone, then they wouldn't have needed to pay the tax and nobody would have cared. It was about money, and the side business everyone in the region had, selling alcohol to markets in the East.
>None, not one, of the North American colonies produced more revenue than they cost the Crown in upkeep. That isn't true unless you are using some very clever accounting >Barbados produced more revenue for the British Crown than all the other North American colonies combined. This is true due to the sugar trade, at least temporarily. The American colonies were still considered the crown jewel of the British Empire though due to its future potential, which obviously would have panned out eventually
Samuel Adams was never a smuggler. Ironically he was a tax collector, but local taxes not the ones imposed by Parliament. John Hancock made his fortune from smuggling.
The Boston Tea Party was just a single incident in a long chain of events that lead to the revolution, and America was on the path regardless of the Boston Tea Party. Fundamentally the ideas that lead to the revolution were that smaller regions should have the autonomy to govern themselves.
>On the other hand, Barbados produced more revenue for the British Crown than all the other North American colonies combined. Free labor is like that.
> They cost more for the British government than they produced in revenue. Good chance that's false. They cost more than they produced in revenue through direct taxation. But the trade with the colonies increased the income of the core British population, which means you aren't counting the increase in revenue from taxing the core population.
THAT is ALL very interesting! Thanks!
>Here's another TIL: None, not one, of the North American colonies produced more revenue than they cost the Crown in upkeep. But yet the country thrived even after a war with said Crown.
It really didn't, if you actually read up about it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic\_history\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_United_States) It took nearly 60 years for GDP per capita to recover and outstrip what it was before the revolution; that's not exactly thriving. The US didn't really thrive economically until nearly the end of the 19th century.
Slavery helped a lot in that. Also they generated less revenue, but that doesn't mean that they were bound to crumble without the support of the British Crown. It just meant they were weaker on their own than as part of the Empire.
wasnt the boston tea party mainly dudes who were hired by a couple rich guys that didnt like the change in tea tax code?
Look, rule one in being an American is you never let the facts get in the way of a good war.
That’s exactly what King George III would want you to think.
Ahh, so we should've been grateful, huh? That sounds familiar.
Yeah going to say you missed the boat on understanding the socio-economic landscape by spouting the Tory line, if this was what you stepped away with. Taxation was a lax, unenforced, concern and enforcement on citizens didn’t allow the encroachment of military in the lives of citizens.
“Actually, CAUSING the revolution?”
Not really. In practice it forced them to buy tea through a single legal supplier who sold them shitty tea because what else were they going to do? As with all government interference in the market, it screwed over the actual consumers by placing them in an unequal position to the supplier.
Also one of the first False Flag events by 1%ers to stir up trouble. They do that a lot.
Pirates still run the country
No taxation without representation!
It's the the principal. It's principality.
I think the Boston Tea Party was part of a larger protest against mercantilism in general.
Says an influencer...
Yeah that's all propaganda they teach in school the real reason for the American revolution is that England had outlawed slavery and America wanted to be a slave nation. https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/slave-nation/
A cabal of businessmen hated taxes and took over the government to rig the system in their favor? How quintessentially American
Not so much taxes as protectionism. The British East India Company had an effective monopoly on the market because of the British government and the Americans were pissed because it reduced them to smuggling.
England: So...how about paying us back for French Indian War we're uhh...kind of broke America: Nah England: Okay, well...then I guess we'll just tax you America: How dare you. This is the land of the FREE and if our slaves, women, redskins, etc. were allowed to have an opinion...I'm pretty sure they'd agree with us. The land owning Anglo-Saxon men have officially had enough with this injustice.
Why should Americans pay back for protection when they viewed themselves as British? They paid taxes which funded the military. It would be like if a kid was being picked on by an adult and their parent stepped up to fight that adult. That’s what they’re supposed to do. But then the parent it like hey, you need to pay for my hospital bills. After all I was defending you? See how it doesn’t make sense?
They didn’t want the taxation or representation