Philadelphia Tea Party
Encyclopedia
The Philadelphia Tea Party was an incident in October 16, 1773, two months before the more famous Boston Tea Party
, in which a British tea ship was intercepted by American colonists and forced to return its cargo to Great Britain.
and the Philadelphia incident were the result of Americans being upset about Great Britain
's decision to tax the American colonies
despite a lack of representation in Parliament
. The tax on tea
particularly angered the colonists, so they boycotted English tea for several years, during which time merchants in several colonial cities resorted to smuggling tea from The Netherlands
. It was generally known that Philadelphia merchants were greater smugglers of tea than their Boston counterparts.
As a result, the East India Company
appealed for financial relief to the British government, which passed the Tea Act
on May 10, 1773. This Act of Parliament
allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies directly and without "payment of any customs or duties whatsoever" in England
, instead paying the much lower American duty. The resulting tax break allowed East India to sell tea for half the old price and cheaper than the price of tea in Great Britain, enabling the firm to undercut prices offered by colonial merchants and smugglers.
The Tea Act infuriated colonials precisely because it was designed to lower the price of tea without officially repealing the tea tax of the Revenue Act of 1767. And colonial leaders thought the British were trying to use cheap tea to "overcome all the patriotism of an American," in the words of Benjamin Franklin
.
, Colonel William Bradford, Thomas Mifflin
, Dr. Thomas Cadwalader
, and other local leaders and members of the Philadelphia Sons of Liberty
. They adopted eight resolutions, one of which stated: "That the duty imposed by Parliament upon tea landed in America is a tax on the Americans, or levying contributions on them without their consent." The most important one read:
Printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette
, these declarations comprised the first public protest against the importation of taxed tea from England.
In Boston three weeks later, a town meeting at Faneuil Hall
declared "That the sense of this town cannot be better expressed than in the words of certain judicious resolves, lately entered into by our worthy brethren, the citizens of Philadelphia." Indeed, Bostonians adopted the same resolutions that Philadelphians had promulgated earlier. The Boston Tea Party followed just a few weeks later, on December 16, 1773.
and reached Chester, Pennsylvania
. Commanded by one Captain Ayres, the ship carried 697 chests of tea consigned to the Philadelphia Quaker
firm of James & Drinker. Several Philadelphia gentlemen proceeded to intercept the Polly and escorted Ayres to the city. Two days later, there was a mass meeting of 8,000 Philadelphians in the State House yard to address the situation. This was the largest crowd assembled in the American colonies up to that point. A number of resolutions were adopted, the first one being "that the tea... shall not be landed." It was further determined that the tea should be refused and that the vessel should make its way down the Delaware River and out of the Delaware Bay
as soon as possible.
Captain Ayres was probably influenced by a broadside issued by the self-constituted "Committee for Tarring and Feathering" that plainly warned him of his fate should he attempt to unload his ship's cargo. Dated November 27, the handbill read, in part:
The flyer also warned river pilots that they would receive the same treatment if they tried to bring in the Polly. (Another such broadside specifically warning river pilots was later issued on December 7.) Consignees of the tea would also suffer dire consequences if they accepted shipment. Captain Ayres was ushered to the Arch Street Wharf and from there returned to his ship. He then refitted the Polly with food and water and sailed it back to Britain, still laden with its cargo of tea.
Perhaps due to the Quaker influence in Philadelphia, the "Philadelphia Tea Party" was relatively nonviolent and did not cause loss to any innocent merchants, since no tea was destroyed. In fact, local merchants may have even helped Captain Ayres with his expenses in returning to England.
at Carpenters' Hall
in Philadelphia the following September. Furthermore, in 1809, Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote to John Adams
:
Both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia were regarded as having been far more conservative before and during the Revolutionary War than the New England colonies and most of the Southern colonies—and this historic reputation persists to this day. But the Philadelphia Tea Party highlights that the radicals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania played a much more active role in the American Revolution than generally acknowledged.
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...
, in which a British tea ship was intercepted by American colonists and forced to return its cargo to Great Britain.
Background
Both the Boston Tea PartyBoston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...
and the Philadelphia incident were the result of Americans being upset about Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
's decision to tax the American colonies
European colonization of the Americas
The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492. The first Europeans to reach the Americas were the Vikings during the 11th century, who established several colonies in Greenland and one short-lived settlement in present day Newfoundland...
despite a lack of representation in Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and Parliament of Scotland...
. The tax on tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
particularly angered the colonists, so they boycotted English tea for several years, during which time merchants in several colonial cities resorted to smuggling tea from The Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. It was generally known that Philadelphia merchants were greater smugglers of tea than their Boston counterparts.
As a result, the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
appealed for financial relief to the British government, which passed the Tea Act
Tea Act
The Tea Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its principal overt objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses. A related objective was to undercut the price of tea smuggled into Britain's...
on May 10, 1773. This Act of Parliament
Act of Parliament
An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...
allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies directly and without "payment of any customs or duties whatsoever" in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, instead paying the much lower American duty. The resulting tax break allowed East India to sell tea for half the old price and cheaper than the price of tea in Great Britain, enabling the firm to undercut prices offered by colonial merchants and smugglers.
The Tea Act infuriated colonials precisely because it was designed to lower the price of tea without officially repealing the tea tax of the Revenue Act of 1767. And colonial leaders thought the British were trying to use cheap tea to "overcome all the patriotism of an American," in the words of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
.
Prelude
Word was received in North America by September, 1773, that East India Company tea shipments were on their way. Philadelphians held a town meeting on October 16 at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall). This meeting was organized by Dr. Benjamin RushBenjamin Rush
Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, humanitarian and a Christian Universalist, as well as the founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania....
, Colonel William Bradford, Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin
Thomas Mifflin was an American merchant and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania, President of the Continental...
, Dr. Thomas Cadwalader
Thomas Cadwalader
Thomas Cadwalader was an American physician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After studying medicine with his uncle Dr. Evan Jones, he traveled to London to study medicine. He lived for a while near Trenton, New Jersey, where he became the chief burgess in 1746. After returning to Philadelphia, he...
, and other local leaders and members of the Philadelphia Sons of Liberty
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty were a political group made up of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies. The group was formed to protect the rights of the colonists from the usurpations by the British government after 1766...
. They adopted eight resolutions, one of which stated: "That the duty imposed by Parliament upon tea landed in America is a tax on the Americans, or levying contributions on them without their consent." The most important one read:
Printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette
Pennsylvania Gazette (newspaper)
The Pennsylvania Gazette was one of the United States' most prominent newspapers from 1728, before the time period of the American Revolution, until 1815...
, these declarations comprised the first public protest against the importation of taxed tea from England.
In Boston three weeks later, a town meeting at Faneuil Hall
Faneuil Hall
Faneuil Hall , located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts, has been a marketplace and a meeting hall since 1742. It was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others encouraging independence from Great Britain, and is now part of...
declared "That the sense of this town cannot be better expressed than in the words of certain judicious resolves, lately entered into by our worthy brethren, the citizens of Philadelphia." Indeed, Bostonians adopted the same resolutions that Philadelphians had promulgated earlier. The Boston Tea Party followed just a few weeks later, on December 16, 1773.
Event
On December 25, the British tea ship Polly sailed up the Delaware RiverDelaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...
and reached Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 33,972 at the 2010 census. Chester is situated on the Delaware River, between the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.- History :...
. Commanded by one Captain Ayres, the ship carried 697 chests of tea consigned to the Philadelphia Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
firm of James & Drinker. Several Philadelphia gentlemen proceeded to intercept the Polly and escorted Ayres to the city. Two days later, there was a mass meeting of 8,000 Philadelphians in the State House yard to address the situation. This was the largest crowd assembled in the American colonies up to that point. A number of resolutions were adopted, the first one being "that the tea... shall not be landed." It was further determined that the tea should be refused and that the vessel should make its way down the Delaware River and out of the Delaware Bay
Delaware Bay
Delaware Bay is a major estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the Northeast seaboard of the United States whose fresh water mixes for many miles with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It is in area. The bay is bordered by the State of New Jersey and the State of Delaware...
as soon as possible.
Captain Ayres was probably influenced by a broadside issued by the self-constituted "Committee for Tarring and Feathering" that plainly warned him of his fate should he attempt to unload his ship's cargo. Dated November 27, the handbill read, in part:
The flyer also warned river pilots that they would receive the same treatment if they tried to bring in the Polly. (Another such broadside specifically warning river pilots was later issued on December 7.) Consignees of the tea would also suffer dire consequences if they accepted shipment. Captain Ayres was ushered to the Arch Street Wharf and from there returned to his ship. He then refitted the Polly with food and water and sailed it back to Britain, still laden with its cargo of tea.
Perhaps due to the Quaker influence in Philadelphia, the "Philadelphia Tea Party" was relatively nonviolent and did not cause loss to any innocent merchants, since no tea was destroyed. In fact, local merchants may have even helped Captain Ayres with his expenses in returning to England.
Influence
Restrained as it was compared to Boston's, the Philadelphia Tea Party was one of the incidents that led to the calling of the Continental CongressContinental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....
at Carpenters' Hall
Carpenters' Hall
Carpenters' Hall is a two-story brick building in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that was a key meeting place in the early history of the United States. Completed in 1773 and set back from Chestnut Street, the meeting hall was built for and is still owned by the...
in Philadelphia the following September. Furthermore, in 1809, Dr. Benjamin Rush wrote to John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
:
Both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia were regarded as having been far more conservative before and during the Revolutionary War than the New England colonies and most of the Southern colonies—and this historic reputation persists to this day. But the Philadelphia Tea Party highlights that the radicals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania played a much more active role in the American Revolution than generally acknowledged.