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Today in history 12-16

Started by remrogers, December 16, 2021, 12:22:07 PM

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remrogers

1773
December 16
The Boston Tea Party

In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.

When three tea ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor, the colonists demanded that the tea be returned to England. After Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused, Patriot leader Samuel Adams organized the “tea party” with about 60 members of the Sons of Liberty, his underground resistance group. The British tea dumped in Boston Harbor on the night of December 16 was valued at some $18,000.

Parliament, outraged by the blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

pitw

I say what I think not think what I say.

Okanagan

One time many years ago when we were heading north across the line late one evening, a Canadian border cop (customs?) pulled my wife and me inside and went over some rinky dink sales receipts.  I was dealing with the man, a little more officious than he needed to be, and maybe he was bored on a slow night.  As we were wrapping up and I paid some small amount, my wife was leaning on the counter beside me, reading a list of duty free goods pasted there. 

"Look at that," she said.  "Tea is duty free.  I guess they learned their lesson at the Boston Tea Party."

The officer physically flinched as if stung.   I seized my wife's elbow and escorted her out the door as fast as possible.  In my last glance at the customs cop I could see red beginning to flush up above his uniform collar.  "Get in the car, quick!" I whipered to her.  Smooth is fast and fast is smooth and we were smooth in our getaway.