Forum Post: If the Boston Tea Party Happened at OWS
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 4, 2011, 7:08 p.m. EST by mtmama
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How would the media spin it?
Historic Accounts
Can you identify differences in individual accounts? For example John Andrews wrote that before nine o’clock every chest was destroyed but Samuel Cooper’s account placed the end of tea destruction at ten o’clock. Interestingly according to the theory of investigations, differences in whiteness testimonies may actually confirm truthfulness of experience-based reports vs. fabricated accounts of events that were not actually experienced.
Participant account by George Hewes "The tea destroyed during the Boston Tea Party was contained in three ships, lying near each other at what was called at that time Griffin's wharf, and were surrounded by armed ships of war..."
The first published account by participant The first published account by a participant was recorded from the words of Joshua Wyeth. He was just sixteen when he joined other patriots in boarding the tea ships in Boston Harbor.
Participant account by David Kinnison From the longest living participant of the BTP who lived to be the age of 115.
Account by an Impartial Observer Having accidentally arrived at Boston upon a visit to a Friend the evening before the meeting of the body of the People on the 29th of November, curiosity, and the pressing invitation of my most kind host, induced me to attend the Meeting.
Participant account by Samuel Cooper This concise but a very detailed account was written by Major Samuel Cooper, a participant who was only 16 at the time of the event but later fought many battles of revolutionary war with great bravery to earn his high rank.
Participant account by John Andrews The house was so crowded that I could get no further than the porch. I found the moderator was just declaring the meeting to be dissolved. This caused another general shout, and three cheers. For my part I went contentedly home and finished my tea, but was soon informed what was going forward.
Account in Boston Gazette On Tuesday last the body of the people of this and all the adjacent towns, and others from the distance of twenty miles, assembled at the old south meeting-house, to inquire the reason of the delay in sending the ship Dartmouth back to London.
Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Newsletter The Indians, immediately repaired on board Captain Hall's ship, stove the chests and emptied the tea overboard; having cleared this ship they proceeded to Captain Bruce's and then to Captain Coffin's brig.
And we miss all the cool stuff leading up to it. Smuggled tea, broken pacts between New York, Pennsylvania, and Mass---you can't make this stuff up. The colonists were drinking smuggled tea and that, in and of itself, incited rage. The Boston Tea Party is always presented as far more patriotic then it actually was.
The reality is that there are very few accounts of those that actually participated in the Boston Tea Party. And in the ensuing years all celebrations commemorating the event denied admission to most of the actual participants. Only the elitists, or the reigning Boston polity, comprised of its successful merchants, were permitted to attend. And most had never participated. So we have this desire of the participants for absolute secrecy, in an effort to protect their identities, throughout the war, coupled with the lack of a true and accurate account in the form of commemoration immediately following the war; and therefore no real effort to preserve the actual thoughts of the participants in documentary form.
But a word on the Tea Party... true, the overall theme was "slavery" in the form of shackles placed upon free enterprise, but we must bear in mind... that they fought in defense of an unbridled corporate freedom. To which, the OWS stands diametrically opposed.