Tea, Tyranny, and the Declaration of Independence

00:00:10: A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, Is unfit to be the ruler of free

00:00:21: people.

00:00:24: Welcome To Life, Liberty and The Pursuit Of Happiness, a podcast commemorating the two-hundred fifty year anniversary of the Declaration of Independence!

00:00:31: This show was sponsored by American Centralman Hamburg Germany And I'm your host Andrew Sola.

00:00:37: On the night of December sixteenth, seventeen seventy-three a group of men dressed as Native Americans snuck aboard The Dartmouth.

00:00:46: A British merchant ship that had just arrived in Boston Harbor carrying and major shipment of tea.

00:00:54: These natives who were in fact members of the Sons Of Liberty threw three hundred forty two chests of the East India Company's Tea into the freezing waters of Boston Harbor.

00:01:07: We remember this event as the Boston Tea Party, an event that helped set off The War of Independence against King George.

00:01:15: A British tyrant who in words was no longer fit to be a ruler of free people.

00:01:26: So what is connection between American independence and tea?

00:01:34: What was East India Company and why was it so important in shaping the events that led to The American Revolution?

00:01:43: And what did the colonists think about the British Empire in India, and the tea trade in general.

00:01:49: Here with me today is Professor Jonathan Eckett.

00:01:56: Jonathan is Associate Professor of History at University of California Riverside.

00:02:01: His research focuses on the British and their empire from the eighteenth century to the present.

00:02:07: His first book, Selling Empire India in The Making of Britain & America, sixteen hundred two eighteen thirty won the World History Association Bentley Book Prize.

00:02:21: a link is in the show notes.

00:02:23: So Jonathan, let's start by unpacking that phrase you chose to start the episode.

00:02:28: A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant... ...is unfit to be ruler of free

00:02:35: people.".

00:02:37: That word Tyrant has capitalized in there.

00:02:39: so it seems have some great effect on the declaration yeah?

00:02:44: Yes and what I'd like?

00:02:45: focus.

00:02:46: how context was different for The Colonist than us today when they thought this word.

00:02:53: So for them, they connected tyrants or tyranny very much with Asia and with the rulers of Asia.

00:03:00: When they were writing this word... They wouldn't have been thinking just about King George!

00:03:05: ...they would've been thinking about rulers that had a vague knowledge but more long history in England of thinking of rulers as tyrants.

00:03:18: Can you just expand on some of those specific examples?

00:03:21: from where and which kind of rulers, who?

00:03:24: maybe any specifics?

00:03:25: Are we talking about Jenghis Khan in like?

00:03:28: I don't know.

00:03:29: Some Mandarin's in China.

00:03:32: They would have had some of that in their heads But i think they were mostly thinking About the Mughal Empire And That was Where They Had Their Closest Connections.

00:03:40: So...and..they Would Think About a Variety Of Different Rulers In parts of Southeast Asia and Asia, but it was the Mughals that they kind of knew the best.

00:03:50: And so... That's because their trade with India.

00:03:54: They focused their trade in the seventeenth-and eighteenth centuries much more heavily on India than on China.

00:03:59: Tee actually comes fairly late in popularity compared to other goods that were trading.

00:04:05: So there were trading spices cinnamon pepper most importantly cotton cloth.

00:04:12: Those are things mostly came from India, from the Mughal Empire.

00:04:17: And so that's why when they thought of tyranny it would often really think in those terms.

00:04:22: and what exactly did Tyranny mean for them?

00:04:25: From a political perspective?

00:04:28: That's a great question.

00:04:29: It is easy to oversimplify this.

00:04:31: Of course there was lots different opinions and views But one thing connected with colonists and people in England Was their sense that freedom meant being Protestant and freedom meant having a English-style constitutional monarchy.

00:04:50: And so if the people weren't Protestant, and they didn't have some sort of Constitutional restraints on the ruler then They saw those people as living under tyranny Of one form or another and of their rulers as being tyrants or tyrants.

00:05:10: So that's really how they thought about the difference between themselves and other people.

00:05:19: And so it wasn't just even about Asian rulers, They would combine into this of course People living in France who they saw living under a pulpish rule?

00:05:28: And then we'd say oh well their Catholic!

00:05:31: So that are not free...they don't have freedom as Protestants.

00:05:35: That was very large part..so associate sort-of Catholic people Muslim people, Hindu people all collectively as living under tyranny.

00:05:47: But the worst were then these Asian tyrants just because I guess...I'm just sensing maybe a little bit of racism in there or maybe a lot of racism and they're

00:05:58: Yeah definitely theres proto-racism or early forms of racism And there's also A strong sense that The further away you get from Protestantism The worse it is.

00:06:11: and so Catholics were at least Christian, but Muslims in Hindus were something else entirely.

00:06:18: I'm just gonna throw this out there.

00:06:20: It's a weird question.

00:06:22: Did black Africans suffer from tyranny?

00:06:25: In the same way they thought that Indians an under-the-mogle Empire.

00:06:31: They're generally less familiar with the political systems of Africa.

00:06:35: There are much more familiar with.

00:06:37: I think it was easier for them to see similarities from a civilizational perspective, or lack of better word.

00:06:48: They associated themselves more readily with the peoples of Asia than with the people's Africa who they saw in racial hierarchy further beneath them.

00:06:57: and Of course there were few already seeing their own treatment America Treatment of African People as tyrannical.

00:07:05: but most part didn't make that connection.

00:07:09: People were starting to make that connection immediately before the American Revolution.

00:07:14: And there has been some work that suggested, recent work that suggests that also contributes to revolutionary sentiment is fears of what's happening in Britain and abolitionism coming to America which would really destabilize much of the American economy Which was based so much on enslaved labor.

00:07:36: I just want to stand this concept of a free people, because it came up in our discussion of Canada and the letters to the oppressed People of Canada.

00:07:47: And sort of one of the great intelligence failures or political misunderstandings Of The Invasion of Canada on these letters To the oppressed inhabitants of canada and I think It's something we see throughout American history When Americans tell other people they're not free You know those people are like.

00:08:10: well, it's not a big issue to us.

00:08:12: Like don't Put your concepts of freedom on us.

00:08:16: and of course the French Canadians did NOT join The Revolution.

00:08:20: They essentially sided with the Protestant King.

00:08:23: But I think it's important just to stress the fact that at this time there were different Concepts of being free.

00:08:31: It was different for a French Canadian a Spanish citizen of spanish florida and in fact we might add that an african-american enslaved person who fled say the carolina south to spanish Florida, would be freed.

00:08:48: Would say well you know there's no freedom for me in the colonies but as now a spanish citizen in florida whose pledged allegiance to The King Of Spain And The Pope Now I'm A Free Person.

00:09:01: And the Quebec Act, which you've sort of alluded to by talking about Quebec is another important touchstone in thinking about The Declaration Of Independence and Tyranny.

00:09:11: because they perceived the Quebec act Which was providing quite a bit of toleration To Catholicism In Quebec Protestant colonists.

00:09:21: In the other thirteen colonies saw that as very dangerous.

00:09:26: They were really afraid That if the British government was going to tolerate Catholicism and accept it, which I think a lot of people today might see as offering more freedom to people in Quebec.

00:09:40: People with thirteen colonies saw that as potential infringement on their own freedoms because again they associated Catholicism very much with tyranny not with freedom.

00:09:51: And so if the British were going to allow Their new colony of Quebec be catholic looked dangerous.

00:10:00: And it got worse because not only did they allow that Catholicism in Quebec from the Patriot perspective, It Got Worse I should say.

00:10:11: They also eventually gave Quebec their rights to The Ohio River Valley which blocked off Pennsylvania and other colonies From expanding inland like they wanted too.

00:10:27: Quebec almost becomes privileged in that way and That was largely because the British government expected The Quebec Government, and the Quebec people to have better relations with the indigenous peoples of the Ohio Valley And they wanted to preserve those relations instead of allowing People from Pennsylvania elsewhere to sort of move across and displace all those Peoples.

00:10:52: right good.

00:10:53: So I want to take this story now actually over Pacific, or however you want to get there over the Atlantic all the way to India.

00:11:02: Obviously I started the episode by talking about The Boston Tea Party.

00:11:06: Tea is such a huge part of the story of the American Revolution and the Declaration Of Independence but the only way of understanding tea.

00:11:13: we have to understand the Mughal Empire.

00:11:15: We have to Understand the East India Company And All That Stuff.

00:11:19: So yeah just explain that.

00:11:21: please

00:11:24: Give me a second to decide where to start here.

00:11:26: All right

00:11:28: So most Americans can tell the story of The Boston Tea Party and And I think there's large agreement of seeing it as triggering the revolution.

00:11:38: But a lot of myths have built up around why the tea party happened.

00:11:43: Then when I ask my students, and I teach A variety classes here Riverside one of them has five hundred students some big world history course that covers this time period I have a big sample size.

00:11:55: When i asked them, what did the TAC do?

00:12:00: Almost all of them are convinced that it raised the taxes on tea.

00:12:07: in fact The TAC did the exact opposite.

00:12:11: It lowered the tax-on-tea and so...I think our question around the T Act And the Boston Tea Party and why it sort of triggers revolution is often kind of backwards.

00:12:24: We sort think a lot people in terms of revolting over higher taxes, but we should be asking why did they revolt over lower taxes?

00:12:34: They'd had a lot opportunities to revolt over higher taxis.

00:12:38: so I think a lotta textbooks use what i call like Accumulative Grievance Theory Of the American Revolution.

00:12:44: So you have The Stamp Act The Townsend Duties These sort of accumulated grievances that typically have to do with increasing taxation.

00:12:56: But people don't revolt, they don't take up arms over any of those acts.

00:13:03: What triggers the acts that make them fight is The Tea Act and it lowers tea taxes.

00:13:09: So I think there's a real puzzle Is why does the revolution start?

00:13:13: Over the lowering of taxes And not over the increasing of taxes?

00:13:17: Okay That kind of telling this story right before for on set of this, but can you just go back maybe before we get there and talk about the origins of trade with India?

00:13:32: The British Empire or the East India Company going to... And setting up in India.

00:13:37: In the creation of this commodity mercantile system where they're growing tea and Indian transporting it all over the world including to the colonies.

00:13:48: I think that history is essential to answering that question about why have a revolution over lowering taxes instead of when they had chances to revolt, or increasing taxes.

00:13:59: So we could start... We've already opened up with the discussion about trade and how that starts is very early in the seventeenth century.

00:14:11: at same time England colonizing North America and Caribbean it's sending out expeditions ships to Asia and primarily going, as I said, to get spices and pepper at first.

00:14:25: And then they realized cotton cloth would be a very valuable commodity...and they marketed it quite heavily!

00:14:33: If your listeners look in their closets they know why.

00:14:36: you know cotton cloth today is of very common fabric because easy to care for.

00:14:42: It looks good, it washes very easily...it's very easy to color in all different kinds of ways.

00:14:47: so its a very attractive product and it hadn't existed really almost at all in Europe before this point.

00:14:57: And So it explodes on the market In process.

00:15:02: that growing popularity starts to displace domestically produced fabrics like woolen in particular.

00:15:11: And so, you know again if your listeners look at their closet they probably have a lot more cotton there than they have wool.

00:15:19: So this wasn't an unfounded fear but it was definitely very politically powerful as well.

00:15:26: and the parliament decides to ban most forms of Indian cotton cloth plain white cloth to come through and a few other things, but most of the stuff that's very fashionable is banned.

00:15:44: But they do not ban the cloth in The American Colonies!

00:15:49: And so one of the things about the Tea Act...is it's a way to prop up the East India Company To increase the sale of tea which is why the tax has lowered.

00:15:59: It's to INCREASE THE SALE OF TEA IN THE COLONIES.

00:16:02: This actually following the parliament had already come up with early in the eighteenth century, with cotton using the colonies as a market or even as a dumping ground for cotton cloth.

00:16:13: A way to profit from consumption... ...in their colonies and other thing they did with the cottoncloth an-and even more of the cotton cloth.

00:16:24: vast quantities of cotton cloth were shipped to Africa In exchange For enslaved African people And those people, of course were then brought to the American colonies for their labor.

00:16:38: So cotton cloth was fundamental... ...to colonization and colonial economies in North America and the Caribbean.

00:16:50: All that cloth before the Industrial Revolution hasn't happened yet.

00:16:54: all of it came from India.

00:16:57: It is huge quantities valuable trade.

00:17:02: And so the company itself is very valuable, its products are valuable and it's a joint stock company like the companies we have today.

00:17:12: people invested in it...and so people had a vested interest In The Company being successful!

00:17:18: The company also loaned money and gave money to the government.

00:17:24: So the government had a vested interest in The Company Being Successful.

00:17:30: The cotton cloth story here is not one that's often discussed in relation to the American independence because we're so focused on tea for all of the incorrect or false reasons, as you were saying.

00:17:44: The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the Tea Act which lowered taxes on tea—not increased it!

00:17:50: So that's good for us to clarify... But the cotton part of this story.

00:17:57: And then I'm just beginning to see, and we're not going talk about this because it has to do with the Civil War industrialization in the cotton industry.

00:18:05: In the South that was developed later.

00:18:07: but i Do want to see now so understand The Cotton Industry and how That Was Developed.

00:18:13: But Im Still Interested In The Tea Trade.

00:18:16: So How Do We Get From Cotton To Tea To The Colonies?

00:18:20: So The East Indie Companies Always Looking For More Revenue Opportunities being imported since the seventeenth century.

00:18:30: But when the bands are placed on cotton, The pressure is obviously even greater to find more commodities.

00:18:37: what else can we bring in and greater quantity?

00:18:40: To offset the loss of that cotton market in Britain itself.

00:18:45: And so T is something they identify as.

00:18:48: let's bring more of that.

00:18:50: and tea In some ways a little bit trickier for them than cotton because they have to go further.

00:18:55: They have to all way China.

00:18:58: and the tea is not coming from India in this period.

00:19:01: It's it's coming from China, it won't be until the nineteenth century that The British actually create large tea plantations In india.

00:19:10: And so for the eighteenth century For the period we're talking about the tea Is Coming almost entirely From china?

00:19:17: And it has taken some of the place Of the cotton cloth.

00:19:22: And so around seventeen forty, seventeen fifty we start to see T become a really dominant commodity for the company.

00:19:30: Before that there had been no question it was always cotton but by the middle of the eighteenth century now you can start to Ct becoming much more valuable and in greater quantities.

00:19:41: The problem is they tend over saturate market.

00:19:45: It's possible bring too much tea.

00:19:48: So price t in London fluctuates a lot, which can cause great loss for the company.

00:19:56: And this is where that idea of getting more tea into the colonies comes from.

00:20:04: Fascinating!

00:20:05: The colonists were by and large happy consumers of tea yes?

00:20:09: They are happy consumers everything.

00:20:12: so one thing about That one strand that is connected from the colonists, I think right forward to the present Is?

00:20:20: The United States has been a consumer society long before it was the united states and so they were eager consumers of Anything They could get from all over the world.

00:20:29: They loved the cotton cloths And they love porcelain From china and they also Love tea.

00:20:35: and So the empire Was working well for them in this sense that It would bring Them All This Stuff.

00:20:40: But There Were Also Bargain Hunters And when it came to tea, the best prices didn't always come from East India Company.

00:20:49: So several colonists—some of them very famous like John Hancock were big tea smugglers and so they would smuggle tea from The Dutch... ...and that was to avoid taxes or duties on tea applied in Britain.

00:21:09: So the Tea Act lowers those duties to discourage people from buying tea from the smugglers and instead, to buy the legal tea.

00:21:18: And so from Parliament's perspective it is better for people to buy a lower tax rate than to buy e-legality at zero tax rates.

00:21:28: I can't remember which of the founders it was.

00:21:31: It was James Madison, maybe or John Adams who served a gas tea and he's like well here is some tea that i really liked drinking at...I believe its smuggled tea.

00:21:41: so don't worry about it.

00:21:42: we're not violating you know our own idea boycotting English tea.

00:21:47: Yes exactly

00:21:49: And thats great.

00:21:50: The other thing Americans may be historically doing as avoiding taxes but Thats another story.

00:21:57: Okay, so I'm beginning to understand this very complex global network of trade.

00:22:02: We've got the Dutch involved in the Dutch tea trade and the Dutch are smuggling.

00:22:06: And you know You can get tea in Philadelphia.

00:22:08: It's relabeled.

00:22:09: So they're avoiding taxes.

00:22:13: we've discussed St Eustaceas other these Dutch colonies another episodes And so we've got the smuggling.

00:22:19: We have these huge trade networks, ships going back and forth, privateers going back-and-forth... ...and of course global wars happening!

00:22:28: The Seven Years War also known as the French and Indian war in North America.

00:22:33: So what is this doing?

00:22:34: In general to a very complex network that goes from China into India all the way to Britain then over the Atlantic.

00:22:43: What's going on?

00:22:44: and how do we continue telling the story of tea here in East India Company.

00:22:48: In the context of The Seven Years War?

00:22:52: through the seven years wars, how T gets connected even more firmly to tyranny.

00:22:58: so I like that.

00:23:00: you mentioned both names for the seven-years war because i think United States there is a tendency look at it as very North American phenomenon but was fully global war and there are historians who call it the first global war.

00:23:14: There's no question that it was a global war, And of course we've already talked about The British Empire gains New France in Quebec out-of this War.

00:23:26: That's the most famous part In North America.

00:23:30: But thats not A particularly valuable colony.

00:23:35: Apologies to people in Canada today but at the time it wasn't particularly valuable.

00:23:42: It was fairly lightly populated and it didn't have any super-valuable products, there were no gold mines or silver mines... There is nothing that was extremely valuable.

00:23:56: in contrast if we go around the world to Asia at the same time that the British were conquering Quebec.

00:24:04: they are conquering a place called Bengal one of the wealthiest places in the world because it is the largest producer of cotton cloth and a massive producer of rice.

00:24:21: And so these two commodities, rice and cottoncloth really drive a robust economy.

00:24:28: in Bengal there's millions of people that live.

00:24:32: they're much larger population than their is.

00:24:34: uh...in New France.

00:24:39: A remarkable story that Britain conquers this place.

00:24:44: The Mughal Empire had successfully resisted conquest by Europeans for hundreds of years, but there's a long story here.

00:24:54: I won't tell the whole story But an important piece is what we're thinking about at a battle called the Battle of Plessy.

00:25:12: And this battle is not very well known in The United States today, but in the seventeen sixties and early seventeen seventies it was very well-known in the American colonies.

00:25:25: What happens after the battle becomes even more well known?

00:25:29: And the reason we can know this from colonial newspapers because there's an explosion of colonial print and newspapers in the middle of the eighteenth century, And there's so many of them.

00:25:42: They've all been digitized which is amazing was great for my research So I could search this...and i realized that india Was a major topic Of conversation For colonists In these newspapers.

00:25:56: they were fascinated by what was happening There.

00:25:59: but The story got very bad Very quickly because the East India Company was a corporation Its interests were in increasing the value of its stock for it's shareholders, but once it conquered Bengal.

00:26:13: It had also become a government and so this is very I think.

00:26:18: In general This is a very scary proposition.

00:26:20: Is for people to be governed by a corporation?

00:26:24: A Corporation that's main goal is To generate revenue And stock price increases For People on The Other Side Of The World?

00:26:35: So when there's a famine in Bengal, which is not an unusual thing to happen and the East Indie Company doesn't cause crop failure.

00:26:44: But When There Is A Crop Failure In The Late-Seventeen Sixties Under East India Company Rule of Bengal The company sees opportunity To Increase Profit And Revenue Because If Food Is In Short Supply The Value Of Food Goes Up.

00:27:03: So if you hold it back from the market, You can increase its value.

00:27:09: and so while they're not doing anything to solve The problem.

00:27:13: They're not bringing more food because they like the cost of food being high There at this same time aggressively collecting their taxes Because there goal is always To get that revenue.

00:27:26: And so they are aggressively collecting Land tax basically from people who can no longer afford to pay it because they can't afford to eat.

00:27:38: And so, the make a hazard of food shortage into massive famine and disaster... ...and we don't know how many exactly die but its millions!

00:27:52: It's Millions Of People Die From Famine Under The East India Companies Rule.

00:27:58: This was huge and terrifying news in England, but also any American colonies.

00:28:06: And their newspapers were full week to week column after column describing the trauma inflicted on the Bengali people by The East India Company.

00:28:21: What struck me about the awareness In the colonies of this terrible famine halfway around the world?

00:28:29: It also resonates with some of the other, I guess early consumer behavior that we see in The Colonies.

00:28:48: Certainly abolitionists would remind them.

00:28:50: You know, you really like drinking your rum but remember that rum is being made under horrible conditions.

00:28:56: So this idea I guess we would call it now ethical consumerism Now Is actually quite a very old idea.

00:29:03: It goes back at least to this time and realized about the commodity of rum And slavery.

00:29:09: But its interesting.

00:29:10: they're also aware Of this famine half world away

00:29:15: Right, and the way that they're gonna connect it is a little bit different because It's not that.

00:29:21: They're super concerned about The ethical questions of the production of tea Because a lot of this tea Is coming from China?

00:29:29: And not from Bengal.

00:29:30: so they have some sense of that.

00:29:34: There are much more concerned About the political implications Of what's happening in Bengal and the news is filtering back into the colonial newspapers in the early seventeen seventies.

00:29:50: And part of the reason that the colonists are needed to prop up The East India Company, it's because the famine is devastating To the east.

00:29:59: india companies finances initially It's okay But then they can't extract the tax once the tax base dies And so it's very harsh.

00:30:09: That that's their reality.

00:30:11: in trying So hard to generate revenue, so fast out of people and increasing the risk Of those people dying They've created real long-term damage of course To Bengal but too Their own economic prospects.

00:30:28: The East Indie company was far more valuable to Parliament than the Atlantic colonies.

00:30:35: just to give you a sense of that The British government brings in about ten times more revenue, In the late seventeen sixties.

00:30:44: From the East India Company than from all of the colonies... ...in North America and the Caribbean And so it's just huge- It is far more tax revenue That comes from Bengal Than come from the thirteen colonies.

00:31:00: So they have extreme pressure to maintain that It's not possible and so the company is in severe danger of failing Which would be disastrous for all that stockholders?

00:31:14: For the British government.

00:31:16: So they need a way to keep it going And that's where the TIAC comes In, this Is Not A Secret To The Colonists At The Time.

00:31:25: I think Its Become Forgotten In A Lot Of Narratives About The American Revolution But It Definitely Wasn't A Secret to Them at The time.

00:31:33: They Very Carefully connected the famine and the disastrous East Indie Company government in Bengal to their supposed-to be new role as consumers of the East India Company's tea, to save it from collapse.

00:31:52: Well I think a lot would prefer that it collapsed!

00:31:56: And they're going something that shouldn't be saved, a corporation.

00:32:05: First of all, it's the monopoly they don't like and second of all That has become A tyrannical government.

00:32:16: This thread we're following from East India Company is fascinating And I'm beginning to get good sense Of this picture The importance of political understanding.

00:32:31: Now, as all of this is happening in Bengal we have the global war going on.

00:32:36: That's also taking place here at the colonies.

00:32:40: So what does The Seven Years War has to do with it?

00:32:44: In my sense... This is my hypothesis.

00:32:46: I don't know about that.

00:32:48: My sense is that British Empire being under threat financially from a potential collapse of East India Company huge revenue disaster Plus, going in debt because of the Seven Years War is facing a financial crisis and that's how these strands might start coming together.

00:33:10: Exactly!

00:33:10: And...the goal for those cumulative grievance acts right?

00:33:15: The Stamp Act on the Townsend Duties Those That Do Try to Raise Taxes On the Colonies.

00:33:22: It's Fascinating Because They Actually Aren't Trying To Generate A Lot Of Revenue.

00:33:27: There Isn'T A Sense That The Colonists Can be a source of massive revenue like India is.

00:33:34: There isn't that expectation, but they're also very frustrated.

00:33:40: there's lots of colonists who are smuggling.

00:33:43: That doesn't seem to be real dedication amongst the officials in the colonies to upholding the imperial regulations and so The Stamp Act is designed a standing military force in the colonies.

00:34:02: And yet, there isn't really need for a standing Military Force in the Colonies anymore.

00:34:07: after The Seven Years' War that just...the threat from France is basically gone and so colonists see that.

00:34:15: well why are you trying to put an army here when we don't need one?

00:34:21: And the colonist had been very successful militia force In The Seven years war.

00:34:27: the British government had already solved their sort of defense-of-the-colonies problem.

00:34:30: They paid for colonial militia, and they defeated... ...the French presence that was most threatening!

00:34:37: And so there seemed to be like why would we need this standing army anymore?

00:34:43: That's kind thing you might have in a place like India.

00:34:47: So it looks bad.

00:34:51: At the same time The Townsend duties follow.

00:34:55: They're not designed to pay for an army, but they are designed to shift.

00:34:59: who pays the tax collectors and Who pays those customs?

00:35:03: Collectors so that they will be paid.

00:35:06: The money will come from the colonies To Parliament.

00:35:09: And then Parliament Will Pay These Collectors themselves.

00:35:15: and by doing this By shifting who pays officials parliament is expecting the officials to Be much more dedicated to serving Parliament's interests and not the interest of the colonists.

00:35:29: And so these acts, I think a lot of time they're looked at as being about taxation but... The grievances in.

00:35:38: if you kind look at the long list of grievances on the Declaration of Independence there is really only one those that are about taxes specifically.

00:35:47: most of the grievances have a lot more do with how the empire is administered and what the rights of the colonists are to make their own decisions.

00:35:58: And those rights seem to be under threat, and when they look across the world to India... They see a place in which those rights don't exist!

00:36:11: ...and they see that The East India Company acts like the same kind of tyrant the Mughal Empire or other Asian rulers acting

00:36:22: like.

00:36:24: In your discussion there you mentioned pretty clearly two specific grievances, grievance number eleven he has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

00:36:39: this is...this is a story that was told about ten thousand British regulars stationed Sons of Liberty might call it a military occupation, right?

00:36:53: Because there's no war.

00:36:54: There's no reason to have a standing army.

00:36:56: And the other one you were referring too I believe is number ten He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers To harass our people in eat out their substance.

00:37:11: Is that referring then?

00:37:13: tax collectors?

00:37:15: Yes That's right.

00:37:17: Okay fascinating Good.

00:37:20: Okay, so as we're getting now from the Seven Years War to this period of all these new acts—the Stamp Acts and Townsend duties

00:37:29: etc.,

00:37:30: We are slowly making our way into the outbreak of conflict.

00:37:34: And maybe it's time that we can go back to Boston The night of December sixteenth seventeen seventy-three and relive that story knowing all this context.

00:37:46: So why don't you start drawing together some of these different contexts for us and the Boston Tea Party?

00:37:53: And to do that I'd like to turn to some of the Patriot authors at the time, and i think they can tell the story here and make the connection for us in.

00:38:03: one of those people wrote under the name Hampton...I'm not sure exactly who Hampton was but Hampton produced a five-part leaflet series.

00:38:15: There's quite a few examples of this surviving, so I think it was fairly well distributed leaflets series and It Was Called The Alarm And Hampton was setting off the alarm for his fellow colonists about what the T Act and the t being brought to the colonies represented.

00:38:38: So again its It's five different leaflets that he produced and they all draw strong connections between Tea, Tyranny the East India Company.

00:38:51: And what he sees is about to happen in The Colony.

00:38:55: so I'll just read you a quote.

00:38:58: So you know...and i like tell my students this That-that..I Like To Read The Quotation So You Know it Not Just Me Saying This.

00:39:04: There Is People At The Time Very Clearly Identifying These Connections a little bit from the alarm.

00:39:12: Parliament used The Tea Act to support the tyranny of the East India Company in the east, enslave the West and prepare us fit victims for the exercise that horrid inhumanity they have such dread abundance with more than savage cruelty practiced on Asiatics.

00:39:43: And so, yeah the Hamptons warning his fellow colonists.

00:39:49: The tyranny of-of the East India Company is being brought to us and John Dickinson a very famous writer Patriot writer from the late seventeen sixties in early seventeen seventies wrote.

00:40:05: in seventeen seventy three Thank God we are not sepoys nor Maharatas, but British subjects who are born to liberty.

00:40:18: Who know its worth and who prize it high?

00:40:24: So the basic message here is unlike The people of India or Bengal American patriots will no better than To accept this tyranny that they will fight back That they value their own freedom and how they define freedom.

00:40:45: And so these are the kind of messages being sent at that moment in the Tea Act, as tea is arriving in Boston to American colonists by other American colonist.

00:41:00: They're drawing a line we've been talking about very directly between East India Company's behavior in America.

00:41:14: just because you started this by talking about the fact that everyone gets it wrong.

00:41:20: The interpretation, let's see.

00:41:22: The chests of tea were thrown into Boston Harbor Because of the Tea Act and people falsely think That It was because it increased taxes on T one.

00:41:31: In fact it lowered it.

00:41:33: thinking About that act as a common person would interpret at At the time what did it really represent to your average person in Boston.

00:41:45: I mean, was it really anything about the tea itself?

00:41:49: Was is just a symbolic thing...I mean of course people talked a lot about that fact.

00:41:54: they've dressed up as Native Americans.

00:41:56: and can you unpack what's going on to an observer at this time say someone sitting on the fence who says okay well i read all these Native American Not Native Americans have thrown all this tea into the harbor.

00:42:13: I mean, what are they thinking then?

00:42:15: That's a great question.

00:42:17: It's hard for historians to know for sure.

00:42:20: we think probably about a third of Colonists were were Patriots and where fairly fired up by this point Probably.

00:42:30: another third thought.

00:42:31: This was all ludicrous.

00:42:33: They looked at arguments being made by people like The Alarm and John Dickinson, and said look Parliament's not going to do that us because we're not C-Boys or Morales.

00:42:44: We are Protestant!

00:42:47: English.

00:42:47: they aren't gonna do those things to us That they've done in India.

00:42:51: And so you know You're blowing this way out of proportion and the East Indie Company is never Gonna rule us.

00:42:58: I mean The alarm has large sections about how the east india company Is Going To Come To Rule Us.

00:43:04: They just think that's never gonna happen.

00:43:07: And then there is probably another third of the colonists who, they're trying to lay as low as possible and don't really want to engage with this you know?

00:43:15: They are trying live their lives in...and certainly Don't look forward going into any kind of conflict a military conflict With the rest of The Empire.

00:43:26: So I Think There Is Definitely A Variety Of Different Viewpoints.

00:43:32: The Patriots are definitely not the only one.

00:43:36: There's a good chance they're not even a majority, probably... ...the people keeping their heads down and more loyal colonists probably form a majority combined And the Patriots on there own might be a plurality.

00:43:53: So it is what happens in response though that definitely galvanizes more people Still may not even be a majority, but certainly galvanizes more people to the Patriot side.

00:44:05: Because...

00:44:06: So wait before you go on to the response.

00:44:09: I mean Basically are lots of people just thinking that this is a stupid prank.

00:44:16: You know no one's dying.

00:44:17: they're going under there throwing a buncha tea in the harbor okay?

00:44:20: Maybe it's going slightly overboard But they're not going and executing sailors on the ship or anything And they're not like torpedoing the ship itself.

00:44:31: Right?

00:44:32: A political stunt, maybe I'd call

00:44:33: it yes and Definitely lots of people see at that way The problem It presents for the British Parliament though is That it Is destroying valuable property and it is directly repudiating parliamentary law and so it is seen as rebellious act, because property is sacrosanct in the British Empire.

00:45:03: And that's one of the freedoms that Protestants also sort of align together with their sense of what-what is freedom?

00:45:11: and Britain...and private property as something that must be protected was a large part of that identity.

00:45:22: So for politicians in Britain this a direct challenge.

00:45:28: So it may look like a prank to some people, but other people...it looks like a real declaration of

00:45:36: rebellion.".

00:45:39: Okay and so then given these various viewpoints about it- It doesn't necessarily need to be..It's not violent in the sense of human life!

00:45:51: But you said what really starts Let's say those who are sitting on the fence, more in the direction of the Patriot side is the overreaction to this.

00:46:00: Or I guess what we would call good American patriots.

00:46:05: but there was a reaction

00:46:08: and i think you know it looked like an Overreaction too.

00:46:12: two people in Britain again.

00:46:13: There's lots Of People In Britain Who Support The Patriots who really see their own government as deeply problematic.

00:46:21: And there's a lot of people in Britain, who see the East Indie Company is deeply problematic and certainly what happened to Bengal has disastrous and unfitting of British people.

00:46:33: over the next several decades they'll be multiple long investigations and impeachments in Parliament over East India company officials and operations.

00:46:44: so you know a lot of shared grievance with the colonists.

00:46:50: But, Parliament...the government reacts exactly how I think Dickinson and Hampton were telling everyone to be afraid of And so they do probably the worst possible thing that could happen.

00:47:06: if their goal is keep this empire together They pass series.

00:47:12: what have been called The Intolerable Acts are really referred to indirectly in a lot of the grievances that are listed.

00:47:24: So what do they do with these intolerable acts?

00:47:26: I mean most gallingly, too many of the patriots and other colonists... The colonial elected governing body is not simply dissolved-that had happened before but it's basically completely put on ice!

00:47:44: It will have no more significance or existence for the foreseeable future.

00:47:51: And so, The colonists of Massachusetts have lost their elected assembly which is seen as absolutely essential to Their constitution and to the English Constitution right.

00:48:05: that's one I very first started describing Protestantism and constitutional monarchy.

00:48:12: Democratic peace is seen as absolutely essential to protecting their rights, and that has removed.

00:48:17: That it's taken from them.

00:48:20: And at the same time The Intolerable Acts also remove the colonist power To appoint their own officers Their own legal judges So they no longer are using peers or their own peers to judge each other.

00:48:35: The town meetings that Massachusetts was famous for are very strictly reduced and constrained.

00:48:44: And so, all of these things make the British administration in government of Massachusetts look like The Administration and Governments of Bengal!

00:48:57: It really did smack of tyranny... ...and it really did!

00:49:01: You know, Bengal didn't have any elected assemblies Bengal did not have any free ports for British merchants, and Massachusetts would no longer have an open port.

00:49:10: It was being blocked from trade even more draconian than what then the monopoly ports in India?

00:49:20: Bengal did NOT have any locally raised and appointed officials.

00:49:25: they were always kind of overlords.

00:49:29: there were NO democratic town meetings or assemblies that had any power or substance in Bengal.

00:49:36: And so, it really was doing what Hampton... ...was so alarmed would happen!

00:49:43: It was making Massachusetts government and administration look like the government at an infunction-like The Government and Administration of Bengal.

00:49:54: So you know again looking at it..it's hard to imagine uh....the British government doing a worse job trying to reduce tension and of course that's not really their goal.

00:50:07: Their goal is to fully control Massachusetts, which of course backfires because many other colonists now see this in other colonies and say oh wow if you're going to do that to Massachusetts there really is nothing stopping you from doing that everywhere!

00:50:25: And we will lose all of our rights.

00:50:31: This has been so fascinating, and the way you've tied together all of these different issues.

00:50:37: about East India Company.

00:50:39: What's going on in Bengal?

00:50:40: The cotton industry...the tea consumption—tea taxes!

00:50:44: —The Boston Tea Party.

00:50:46: now the Intolerable Acts.

00:50:47: And then when I look at this phrase that we started with from the Declaration of Independence A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant Is unfit to be the ruler of a free people?

00:51:03: Well, for me.

00:51:04: The two key phrases there are attirent right and now we get this sense of tyranny.

00:51:10: that way That's the East India Company.

00:51:13: under also under King George has totally ravaged the poor People of Bengal.

00:51:18: And then This Free People Comment is so well it self-evident.

00:51:25: as the Declaration of Independence says, these things are self-elven and we're free people.

00:51:30: You cannot treat us like other unfree people out there on the other side of this sea in Africa or places where you've been saying all along that they were protestants.

00:51:43: We have rights under constitutional monarchy but will not be treated as victims.

00:51:52: Thank you for unpacking that terrific phrase from me today.

00:51:56: Now, do want to make any final comments about that phrase before we conclude?

00:52:02: I'd like to let two more Patriot writers makes some comments and one of them Makes the connection here with Quebec that we had talked about before And it really falls on about what you were just saying as well how they perceive themselves as free people unlike other people.

00:52:24: And this patriot was writing about the Quebec Act and saying that, The People of Quebec as Catholics were-and this is a quote-as much slaves as the inhabitants of France or

00:52:41: Turkey.".

00:52:43: So again making that very specific connection... That the Quebec act was intended to prepare the way for universal despotism in The British Empire.

00:52:59: I'll leave you with another one here too, and this one is a little awkwardly phrased but it's great because It wasn't just a quotation.

00:53:11: There's actually a very popular series of prints that were produced In the early seventeen seventies Of King George III wearing a turban And A Big Asian Robe And it came with different names.

00:53:26: It was titled in different ways, there's a few different varieties of this but it literally portrayed George the Third as a Mughal emperor As what they perceived an Asian tyrant.

00:53:39: So that is quote circulated well and didn't go along with picture.

00:53:43: The picture existed separately from this.

00:53:46: It was a fake quotation.

00:53:48: So if you think about fake news today, one patriot wrote a quotation and attributed it to George III.

00:53:54: but it wasn't George the Third...it's fake!

00:53:56: But he admitted that it is fake.

00:53:58: so yes there were these fake quotations like oh George III said this as well.

00:54:03: He didn't actually say that but went on saying we have fairly clothed an Eastern spirit.

00:54:13: This is here referring to George the Third as an Eastern spirit.

00:54:17: He's no longer Western, he's no long in Englishman... ...he's a Eastern Spirit with fairly clothed and eastern spirit in an Eastern garb.

00:54:28: And so we kind of started talking about cotton today.. ..and hear this symbolism of dressing George III whether it be picture or quotation As a Mughal ruler was again very, very powerful.

00:54:43: And that's another kind of way we can see when they said tyranny and tyrant.

00:54:50: this is what they were thinking

00:55:09: tea and cotton to politics.

00:55:13: But we've come to the end of our discussion today, Jonathan And I ask all my guests here.

00:55:19: We are at the two hundred fifty year anniversary Of The Declaration of Independence.

00:55:24: you're a historian specialist in Bengal early America.

00:55:29: what Are your big takeaways looking back?

00:55:32: Two hundred fifty years In the past.

00:55:35: i don't think it's uh particularly new comment But it's clear that we are in the United States continuing to struggle with a relationship between despotism and freedom, not only globally but within our own borders.

00:55:56: And I think looking back at this history We can see that the patriots were already heavily involved in global thinking.

00:56:07: they weren't isolationist at all.

00:56:09: They were very tuned into what was happening in the rest of The British Empire, In the Rest Of The World... ...they had a very clear sense of What They Were Afraid Of.

00:56:23: and some of those fears were racially motivated.

00:56:28: Some of Those Fears Were Motivated By Religion And Some Of Those FeARS WERE MotivATED BY losses of freedom that they were really concerned, They we're gonna face in what seemed to be a very changing British Empire.

00:56:49: So I think the old stories about taxation...they have their place.

00:56:54: but i think it's more valuable maybe for us to start thinking more about all these other concerns That patriots had About the infringements on their rights about great fear of monopoly and monopoly corporations.

00:57:09: They were deeply, deeply afraid of monopoly corporations not only because the East Indie Company but that was the most frightening example they saw.

00:57:21: But it wasn't the only monopoly company around There's also the Hudson Bay Company which is closer to home and could conceivably become a problem.

00:57:34: We're very afraid of corporate power.

00:57:38: So this is a terrific moment for us to rethink all the list of grievances in The Declaration Of Independence and Direct our focus maybe a little less To taxation which again wasn't such a big part of the list.

00:57:57: But think about why that list of Grievance's was so long And About what?

00:58:04: grievances were more carefully and these grievances really do collect around questions of fear, of losing rights.

00:58:16: Of representation right to make choices for themselves as colonists' rights to trade As they wanted to trade with the rest of the world And rights to avoid corporate power the kind of monopolies that they really feared.

00:58:41: So I think if we stop thinking so much about taxation, We're going to get a much bigger and more important sense Of what motivated those colonists And maybe issues That can help motivate

00:59:23: us today at our website, americancentrum.de where you can become a member and donate.

00:59:52: The American Centrum is an nonpartisan not-for-profit institution dedicated to strengthening the transatlantic relationship.

01:00:00: Views & opinions expressed in this episode are those of guests or hosts Not America.

01:00:08: We take our Nonpartisan mission seriously.

01:00:11: Therefore we do NOT take any institutional positions on politics.

01:00:16: Learn more about us, become a member and donate at americancentrum.de.

01:00:22: Thanks for listening!