In “A Shoemaker and the Tea Party”, George Robert Twelves Hewes, a Boston Shoemaker, artisan, and ordinary citizen, describes his participation in key historical events. Nearly fifty years after participating in pre-revolutionary events such as the Boston Tea Party – it wasn’t given this name until the nineteenth century - Hewes, one of the last survivors of this historical event, describes key events that led up to the evening of December 16th, 1773. This biography dictates a time when American colonists were decidedly more defiant with British Parliament, furthermore, colonist strategized to implement actions to resist taxation from Parliament. Intended for general audiences, Hewes gives a factual, straightforward account in order to keep
The events of March 5, 1770 should and have been remembered as momentous and predictable. Perhaps not the night or city specifically, but the state of affairs in Boston, if not throughout The English Colonies, had declined to the point that British troops found themselves frequently assaulted with stones, dirt, and human feces. The opinions and sentiments of either side were certainly not clandestine. Even though two spectators express clear culpability for the opposing side, they do so only in alteration of detail. The particulars of the event unfold the same nonetheless. The happening at the Custom House off King Street was a catastrophic inevitability. Documents from the Boston Massacre trial, which aid us in observing from totally different perceptions. The depositions of witnesses of the event prove to be useful; an English officer Captain Preston and a colonial Robert Goddard give relatively dissimilar details. In spite of these differences, they still both describe the same state of affairs.
Gary B. Nash argues that the American Revolution portrayed “radicalism” in the sense on how the American colonies and its protesters wanted to accommodate their own government. Generally what Gary B. Nash is trying to inform the reader is to discuss the different conditions made by the real people who were actually fighting for their freedom. In his argument he makes it clear that throughout the revolution people showed “radicalism” in the result of extreme riots against the Stamp Act merchants, but as well against the British policies that were implemented. He discusses the urgency of the Americans when it came to declaring their issues against the British on how many slaves became militants and went up against their masters in the fight for a proclamation to free themselves from slavery. But he slowly emerges into the argument on how colonists felt under the
Many people believe that the Boston Tea Party arose just because of the Tea Act that came into play in 1773, but in-fact, this major statement arose from two issues surrounding the British Empire in 1765. The first of the issues was that the British East India Company was at risk of going under and the Parliament was finding ways to bring it back. The second issue was that there was a continuing dispute about the extent of the Parliament’s authority. Many colonists believe that the Parliament went overboard with their power and the people were concerned about the future. Attempting to resolve these two major issues, the North Ministry only worsened the problem and produced a showdown that would eventually result in revolution.
The benefit of hindsight allows modern historians to assume that colonists in British America united easily and naturally to throw off the bonds of tyranny in 1775-1776. The fact that "thirteen clocks were made to strike together" (p.4) surprised even the revolutionary leader John Adams. Prior to the mid-1700s many residents of British North America saw themselves in regional roles rather than as "Americans", they were Virginians or Bostonians, regional loyalties trumped any other including those as British colonial citizens. In T. H. Breen's work, The Marketplace of Revolution, he offers an explanation for the sudden creation of a unique American identity. In his words, "What gave the American Revolution distinctive shape was an earlier transformation of the Anglo-American consumer marketplace" (p. xv). Breen contends that before Americans could unite to resist the British Empire, they needed to first develop a unity and trust with one another in spite of their regional differences. "The Marketplace of Revolution argues, therefore, that the colonists shared experience as consumers provided them with the cultural resources needed to develop a bold new form of political protest" (p. xv). The transformation of the consumer marketplace allowed the colonists of British North America to create a unique British and the American identity that would later result in revolution and the formation of a new nation. This trust based on consumption, Breen concludes, was absolutely necessary for the boycott movement to be an effective tool against the British government. "Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people protest remains a local affair easily silence by traditional authority" (p.1).
Being a great schemer, Lord North struck out the plan of the East India Company’s sending tea to America, hoping thereby to outwit us, and to establish the Townshend Act effectually, which will forever after be pleaded as a precedent for every imposition the Parliament of Great Britain shall think proper to saddle us with. It is much to be wished that the Americans will convince Lord North that they are not yet ready to have the yoke of slavery riveted about their necks, and send back the tea whence it came.
George Hewes’ account of the Boston Tea party is considered a firsthand account of a historically significant event. The Boston Tea party took place the night of December 16, 1773 on three ships anchored in Boston Harbor. Hewes recounts the events leading up to the Boston Tea Party, the actual attack on the ships and its aftermath. He provides descriptive narration thus contributing to the historical context surround the Tea party. This event and many others leading up to it, provide a colorful backdrop on the eve of the American Revolution.
The Shoemaker and the Tea Party examines three main events, The American Revolution, The Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party, and in which ways they are shaped as memories over time. Within the chapter labeled “Taming the Memory of the Revolution, 1783-1820,” Young goes on to discuss what it takes for an event to pass into a public memory. During the time of the American Revolution, so many negative events happened that many Americans did not want to past as memories, such as the Boston Massacre. Young makes a point that instead of remembering all of the negative events that happened, “exchange that Anniversary for Another,” (Young, 1999, 108). With that being said, The Boston Massacre happened on March 5, 1770, while the Declaration of Independence was adopted into Congress July 4, 1776 – the Fourth of July overshadowed March 5th,
...itish government. In Boston, the site of a bloody confrontation between British redcoats and Americans citizens less than 10 years before, emotions ran high. Boston was a center of agitation and finally on the night of December 16,1773, the course of world history was changed. A revolutionary event was on the horizon. As once patriot mournfully observed, “Our cause is righteous and I have no doubt of final success. But I see our generation, and perhaps out whole land, drown in blood.” (Liberty, 2) The rest is history.
Boston, the capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and important shipping town, was a major center of resistance to unpopular acts of taxation by the British Parliament in the 1760s2. In 1768, the Townshend Acts were placed upon the colonists, by which a variety of common items that were manufactured in Britain and exported to the colonies were subjected to import tariffs3. The Massachusetts House of Representatives began a campaign against the Townshend Acts by sending a petition to King George III asking for the repeal of the act. The House also sent what became known as the Massachusetts Circular Letter to other colonial assemblies, asking them to join the resistance movement, and called for a boycott of merchants importing the affected goods. As a response, Lord Hillsborough, who was the leader of the office of Colonial Secretary, was forced to take action. In April 1768, Hillsborough sent a letter to the colonial governors in America instructing them to dissolve the colonial assemblies responsible for the repeal4. When the house of colonial governors refused to comply and rescind the letter. Hillsborough then stated...
Alfred F. Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party illustrates the life of George Robert Twelves Hewes, a lowly shoemaker in Boston, and his transformation into a citizen active in the revolutionary events of his time. Young uses Hewes’ transformation to illustrate what liberty and freedom meant for the ordinary Bostonian during the revolutionary period, and emphasizes how the definition of freedom was an enigma even as the colonial rebels fought for their liberation from England. As the events of the revolution went underway, it brought an opportunity for everyone affected by and participating in these events to consider and challenge their own definitions of freedom as their new identity as Americans emerged. Hewes was directly impacted by
The year was 1773 and the beginning stages of the Boston Tea Party were in full swing. With a strong hold on and not over the American colonies
At the beginning of the war, everything was in array and no one could agree on anything, disorganization and uncertainty overwhelmed everyone. Organizations that were meant to be unifying factors for the colonists, like the Continental Congress, were little more than debating clubs that had to work for weeks before they could come to a decision. As time went on and the Tea Act was put into place the rage of the people made them grow closer. By the eve of the American Revolution, Parliament’s aggression towards the colonists had drawn a distinction between the colonist’s political, economic, and social ideas and those of the British. Colonists had embraced a new identity that helped fuel their resistance against Britain (American Identity and
The Intolerable Acts of 1774 greatly fueled the First Continental Congress. In response to the Boston Tea party, the British Parliament decided that a series of laws were needed to calm the rising resistance in America. “One law closed Boston Harbor until Bostonians paid for the destroyed tea. Another law restricted the activities of the Massachusetts legislature and gave added powers to the post of governor of Massachusetts.” As one can imagine, the American colonist viewed this as the British attempt to curtail their quest for independence.
In concern to the American Revolution, there are two sides debating its primary cause. One set of historians believe the cause to be ideals and principles. The other set of historians and scholars credit economic and social interests as the primary cause of the Revolutionary War. Historians Jesse Lemisch and Dirk Hoerder used the mobs in colonial cities as evidence of the social concerns of Americans at that time. Another Historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger argued in a 1917 study “that it was the colonial merchants who were chiefly responsible for arousing American resistance to the British; and that although they spoke of principles and ideals, their real motives were economic self-interest: freedom from the restrictive policies of British mercantilism.” This argument is very concrete and is supported by the different legislation that the British Parliament passed after the Seven Years’ War. In fact, an act was passed in 1764 by the Parliament that was instrumental in specifically angering the merchants that played a major role in leading the Americans to independence. That piece of legislation was the Sugar Act which placed a tax on sugar being brought into the colonies. This tax was a significantly less than the one that was logged in the book previously; however, that tax had been ignored for years. The initial response of the merchants to this piece of legislation was anger because this new law cut off their highly profitable smuggling organizations which greatly affected their earnings. Soon after tha...
The play’s major conflict is the loneliness experienced by the two elderly sisters, after outliving most of their relatives. The minor conflict is the sisters setting up a tea party for the newspaper boy who is supposed to collect his pay, but instead skips over their house. The sisters also have another minor conflict about the name of a ship from their father’s voyage. Because both sisters are elderly, they cannot exactly remember the ships name or exact details, and both sisters believe their version of the story is the right one. Although it is a short drama narration, Betty Keller depicts the two sisters in great detail, introduces a few conflicts, and with the use of dialogue,