Today's lecture for history one on one, I just kind of wanted to remind you guys that the Connect assignments are still do, as usual, with the usual schedule if you're not sure what the schedule is you can check out our syllabus, the schedule in the syllabus has what the due dates are, or you can log into connect to directly and look at the schedule there but either way just kind of wanted to point that out to you guys as a friendly reminder. So, last class we left off talking about the different perspectives that England kind of had on on the, the actions that the American colonists have taken to this point and reasons why England had a right to feel upset. We talked a little bit about America's perspective and why they kind of feel they had a right to feel a little bit upset as well. What I want to do is pick up today talking about kind of a replacement for the Stamp Act Remember last lecture we talked about how the Stamp Act was ultimately repealed by Parliament, which means less money is coming in and remember Parliament still has that hundred and 45 million pounds or million dollars of debt, that is still has to pay off so when the Stamp Act got repealed. That's less revenue coming in. So, England needed to replace the stamp back with something else and what they're ultimately going to replace it with is a new set of laws that were referred to as the Townshend acts of 1767. So we'll talk a little bit about what those townshend acts look like, we'll talk about what America's reaction to the townshend acts are going to be and what we see is that America is going to be forced, an American colonists are going to be forced to get kind of creative in terms of how they protest these laws, England is going to kind of wise up from its last attempts at passing laws and dispatch professional soldiers to the city of Boston, because Parliament identified the city of Boston pretty quickly. As an area of discontent and an area where a lot of problems kind of start in the American colonies. So what that's going to do is force the Bostonians to get creative. Can't you know attack our tax collectors anymore and intimidate them into resigning because the British soldiers around. So how can we protest these laws without pissing off the British soldiers and getting ourselves on the wrong side of the law. So we'll talk about what the reaction is going to look like that non violent reactions going to look like and how that non violent reaction of protests is going to be even more effective in a lot of ways than what the previous violent protests were so we'll talk about what that looks like, what those nonviolent protests, the impact that they have on the British and on parliament. We'll talk about the Boston Massacre and the details of the Boston Massacre of 1770. We'll talk in detail about what happened that particular night some of the major characters involved including john adams what the outcome of that trial is going to be the impact that the Boston Massacre has on the relationship between England and the American colonies, but also how this is going to play out in the media, what we're going to see is that both sides are really going to attempt to to spin this in a way that makes their side look better than the other side. We'll take a look at an example of some American propaganda and a picture specifically that you'll get a chance to see in the PowerPoint presentation, what you're going to see is that picture. The original picture was edited censored doctored a little bit. And what you're going to see is that it's doctored in a way that is going to be very anti British and it's in stance in this position. So, we'll take a closer look at that specific picture. We'll talk about how if the Boston Massacre. Really, angered American colonists towards Great Britain, the HMS gaspee incident is going to be that big event that's going to anger England towards the American colonies so we'll talk briefly about what that HMS gaspee incident was, and the impact that it has on the American relationship with Great Britain. We'll end this lecture talking about a new law that gets passed as well called the Tea Act of 1773, and will how that Tea Act is going to kind of be the beginning of the end in terms of the relationship between the American colonies in Great Britain, that that Tea Act is going to precipitate the breaking points and we'll talk more about that what that breaking point is probably in our next lecture. So hopefully that all makes sense and we're all kind of on board. So, going back to topics we discussed last class we left off with talking about England's perspective and why England feels like it has a right to feel upset with how things have gone to this point, some of the points that we'd mentioned here is that the American violence towards the tax collectors is unacceptable that, you know, we, as England accrued this debt 145 million pounds of debt from protecting you the American colonists and we're asking you to help pay it back taxes in England are much worse from the American perspective we talked about how, you know, England already squeezes a lot of money out of the American colonies through the imbalance of trade that we discussed that taxes are now going back to England for the first time, which is a new thing and that's something that we have a lot of issues with over here in the American colonies as well, that we fought in the French Indian War and we paid with our blood as well as our supplies and donations to the war effort. And we never got compensated for those donations. So as far as we as Americans are concerned we already paid for our portion of that hundred 45 million pounds of debt. So what I want to pick up with today are those Townshend Acts that I referenced at the beginning of this. So those Townshend Acts of 1767 are going to be a series of new taxes on some of the most popular products in the American colonies. And remember this tax the whole point of it is to replace the previously repealed Stamp Act. So what we're going to see is that tax is going to be placed on paper, lead glass, and tea. Those were among the most popular products in the American colonies right now. So it makes perfect sense for England to kind of put these these taxes on here. What we also see is it's going to expand the number of vice Admiralty courts in the American colonies which we've already talked about how you know vice Admiralty courts were courts in which all you got was a British judge, no American judge and no American jury. We're also going to see is that part of the Townshend Acts here are going to threaten the colony of New York because the county of New York, had had refused to follow the rules of the quartering act of 1765. Remember how we mentioned that the quartering act forces, Americans, particularly in owners and hotel owners and things like that to open up rooms at the expense of the colonies and New York for a while had issues with that didn't want to follow it. And what ultimately part of the townshend Acts is going to do is threatened to in essence dissolve the New York governments, unless they follow the rules. So as you can imagine this new law the Townshend Acts is going to be wildly unpopular. And and you're gonna see small scale violence kind of break out in Boston once again over this law, but Parliament had seen this show before and Parliament decided that it's not going to make the same mistake that I made last time. So, not too long after this law gets passed Parliament decides to send professional British soldiers into the city of Boston, basically to maintain the peace again at identifying Boston as an area where things had gone wrong in the past and this is where all of our trouble starts so if we send soldiers in the city of Boston, hopefully that will prevent that, you know that that violence and breaking out. Not a not a stupid move on the part of Parliament to kind of learn our lesson the first time around. So what this is going to do is it's going to force the, the Boston mob, and the rest of the people of Boston to get creative.
You know, we want to protest these laws these taxes we don't like them. But now that they're soldiers in the city, how do we do that we can go the old way that we used to go where we attack the tax collectors and you know intimidated them into resigning, it's not gonna work this time. So, what the Boston. The citizens of Boston, agreed to do as much as you know they could get everybody on board with doing it. Um, was a non violent means of protests. And this is probably a really good life lesson for all of us today. If there is a particular company or there's a particular product that you really want to protest against violence isn't a good way to get it done. What is a good way to get it done is to either boycott that company, or to, you know, agree collectively as a big group of people, not to purchase their goods or not to import their goods. And that's exactly what the Bostonians are going to do, they are going to boycott the those products of paper, lead, glass, and tea as much as possible. They're going to try to convince their colonial governor not to import those goods into the colony, hoping that that is going to put financial pressure on England to kind of give up those those taxes.
This is a brilliant move, ah 100% of brilliant move and and the evidence that we have for that is that when the Townshend Acts, are passed in 1767. Over the course of the next three years with all this boycotting and non importation that's going on, initially in Boston, but once word spreads to the rest of the 13 colonies that Boston is is boycotting these products. All 13 American colonies are going to get on board with this too.
So, by 1770. What Parliament had figured to itself, is that it collected somewhere around 21,000 pounds or 21,000 British dollars worth of taxes on those products that pay per lead class and tea, because remember, you know many people can agree not to buy those things or to boycott them, but you're never gonna get 100% participation, it's just never gonna happen. So, even though Parliament collected 21,000 British dollars worth of taxes on those products. The British businesses in England had estimated that over that same three year period, they have lost somewhere around $700,000 worth of revenue, because Americans were no longer buying those products at through usual pace. $700,000 going back to this time period is a devastating amount of money to lose. And this really hurts British businesses big time, to the point where those business owners are going to go to Parliament basically on their hands and knees and begged parliament to take the taxes off of those products to repeal in essence, the Townshend Acts, because they can't withstand the the loss of the, of the revenue anymore. parliament, ultimately felt like it had no choice. It gave into the demands of the, the British business owners, and it repealed the tax on
paper, lead
and glass. Three of the four products, there were more than four products but those were among the biggest ones. They are going to keep the tax on tea in place, and keep an eye on that because that's going to have a part to play in our story a little bit later. But this this idea of boycotting and non importation is very successful is a great way of putting pressure on parliament, while not using any violence in order to achieve it. That's fantastic.
So, what we now have is professional British soldiers in the city of Boston, which means that those professional soldiers are now cohabitating with members of the Boston mob, and we already talked about the Boston mob in this class, how the Boston mob is notoriously wild is notoriously violent. So that's a recipe for disaster right there you have a barrel of gasoline. With now matches all over the place. When you put British soldiers and members of the Boston mob in close proximity, it's a question really of, if not, when violence is going to happen. And on March, 5 1770, that violence is eventually going to explode and what becomes known as the Boston Massacre. So let's talk a little bit of details of that night, and I'm sure some of you probably remember some of this stuff from grade school in high school, but maybe not some of the finer details. So, on the night of March 5 17 seven, what we had was one British soldier, that was on duty that night kind of patrolling the streets, two members of the Boston mob left one of the bars that night pretty intoxicated and on their way home they noticed this British soldier and decided to kind of mess with the guy a little bit, so they walked down the street towards him. They exchanged some insults with him to kind of cursed out him a little bit. He kind of got into with them a little bit as well telling him to kind of go home and shut the hell up this this little TIFF between the three of them is going to start to snowball pretty quickly. Over the next several minutes more members of the Boston mob come out of the bar the tavern and they notice what's going on and they start to join the rest of those two members of the Boston mob. That number balloons to somewhere around 40 to 50 people now surrounding this one British soldier who's currently on duty. So as you can imagine, that one British soldier now is pretty terrified, and rightly so. So that British soldier now kind of like you know sends for help, and that help eventually comes back into the tune of what's eventually going to be eight total British soldiers, plus one British officer now to kind of come and help this person out. So, as you can imagine, a group that big of around 60 people or so total 50 or so members of the Boston mob plus eight soldiers and one British officer is going to attract attention throughout the city. Church bills now start to ring inside the city, and that's usually a typical thing that happened when a major incident like a fire was going on in the city. So when the church bells start ringing in the middle of the night, people are going to start coming out of their homes. What that means now over the next several minutes, is that initial group of about 40 to 50 members of the Boston mob now is intermingled with about 150 to 200 now just regular Boston citizens. So that total group now has ballooned up to about 200 people, all surrounding eight soldiers and one British officer. Now, here's where things are really going to start to kind of ratchet up in terms of their tension. The Boston mob kind of starts to close in around the British soldiers, the British soldiers, you know, grab their guns and start to point them to the crowd kind of try to intimidate people into going home. Um, bricks are now starting to get thrown in the British soldiers rocks are starting to get thrown at the British soldiers ice balls are starting to get thrown at the British soldiers, which means that this is this is escalating, to the point where it's serious violence now. It's not just threats and insults anymore.
Where this situation kind of reaches the critical point is one of the British soldiers ends up getting struck in the head with either a brick or a rock or something he couldn't say definitively what it was but whatever it was, it hit him was enough to knock him completely onto the ground and he dropped his gun. When he stood up, he grabbed his gun pointed it into the crowd and maybe in anger, maybe in panic, maybe in some combination of both. Ultimately fired into the crowd. When one British soldier shot into the crowds, a second British soldier heard the gunshots and now also fired into the crowds that second shot, then now spurs the rest of the soldiers to shoot into the crowd. The British officer never gave the order to fire. He was trying his best to try to calm both sides down to try to get the giant crowd in front of them to go home but it simply just was not enough. The British shooting into the crowd will ultimately leave five members of the Boston citizenry either the Boston mob or the Boston citizens themselves about five people dead in total. And about two people injured. Now, as you can imagine that's a huge deal that news in the city of Boston is going to spread like wildfire. And the next day, there was a British soldiers and that British officer, are going to be arrested and they're going to be put on trial for murder. This is a very serious incident, obviously, and it's an incident that's not going to be able to simply just get swept under the rug. This is going to be an American judge with an American jury in the city of Boston, which means that these British soldiers and British officer are really up against it, it is a very high hill that they're going to have to climb in order to be found not guilty or.
Now, in the weeks after the incident. As you can imagine there are no American lawyers that are willing to defend these British soldiers. Most of the lawyers in the city of Boston if not all of them are already pretty angry and upset with the British so right there nobody wants to represent the British period when you mix in the fact that these British soldiers and British officer. There's a very slim chance that they're going to be found not guilty means that nobody, none of these lawyers are going to want that loss on their record. What you also need to realize about practicing law and being a lawyer back at this time period is that if you were a defense lawyer, you only got paid at the end of the trial if you found. If your, your people you're representing were found not guilty. If they were found guilty you did not get paid, so there is yet another reason why there are very few if any little hairs anywhere near the city of Boston that want to touch this case. After weeks go by what we finally see is that john adams steps up to the plate and says if nobody else will defend these guys then I'll do it. Yes, it's the same john adams that will eventually be second President of the United States. So why did john adams ultimately sign up for this case a whole bunch of different reasons why. first Adams is a bit of a legal purist here. And what I mean by that is that he's somebody who really truly believes that everybody deserves to be defended in court and represented in court, no matter how guilty they are so if nobody else is going to do it I'll do it. Another major reason why john adams is interested in taking this case is for self interest. If you think about this, this is about to be a very high profile case. In, not just the city of Boston but really all in America. This is going to put Adams on the front page of a lot of newspapers and Adams is already kind of thinking long term here Adams is interested in public office. This is going to put him on the front pages, this is going to put him in the spotlight and that ultimately is probably going to be good, potentially for his long term political career. So, with all this in mind, Adam starts to get to work, interviews, the witnesses takes a look at the evidence looks at what happened to the events that night. And ultimately, the argument that Adams is going to make here on behalf of the soldiers and the officer that he's representing is to put in a plea of not guilty. Through self defense that yes they shot into the crowd we're not denying that yes, people died, they're not we're not denying that, but the facts of the case ultimately show that these soldiers shot into the crowd in self defense, and they have a right to do so, that's given all the evidence and all the details of the incident is going to ultimately be a pretty compelling argument and very long and somewhat interesting story short, Adams is going to get all of them found not guilty of murder. They're all going to be acquitted of murder, including the officer. Two of the soldiers, the two that shot into the crowd first. They will be found guilty of lesser charges of manslaughter. Those two soldiers are going to plead for clemency, and that was something that existed back during this time period that if this was your first offense, even if it was a major offense that usually you'd be granted a certain amount of leniency because it was your first offense. So, what these soldiers punishment is going to be for manslaughter is to have their thumbs branded. Now for those of you who aren't familiar with branding. What it is is it's when you heat up a piece of metal like iron into a really hot temperature to the point where that iron is glowing. You then kind of stick it onto a person's skin and in essence what you're doing is permanently burning a mark into that person's skin that will be there for the rest of their life. What these soldiers are getting is is the mark of the letter M on their, their thumbs, meaning M for manslaughter. What this means now for the future, is that these soldiers ever screw up again, and they go to court, again, the court can simply just look easily at their hands, see that they were found guilty of manslaughter once before, and they wouldn't be given clemency a second time. This is also a bit of a personal mark on these soldiers for the rest of their lives, anytime they introduce themselves to somebody anytime they engage in any type of social interaction with anybody. People will always be able to look at their hands and see that they were found guilty of a pretty serious crime. And that's going to make people, you know, kind of uncomfortable around them for the rest of their lives. So the punishment here is not just pain, it's also somewhat social,
making them kind of social priors so to speak.
So,
the outcome of this case, clearly is going to negatively affect the relationship with the American colonies. A lot of people in America, especially the hardcore members of the Boston mob are going to be very angry and upset, the fact that these soldiers and this officer were found not guilty of murder. But we're also going to see is that the media is going to pick up on this pretty heavily, and the newspaper in the city of Boston is going to print what becomes a very famous picture or image of the events of the Boston Massacre. Now you can see this in the PowerPoint presentation. It's a picture that was originally created by Paul Revere and the St. Paul Revere, what you see and I want to kind of you guys when you look at it the original and compare it to what actually gets printed in the newspaper. I want you to kind of focus on some pretty key differences between the two pictures. one of the main things you're going to see in terms of difference is that the picture that gets printed in the newspaper has a lot less blood portrayed in the crowd and part of that is from natural censoring back then that they felt like having too much blood in the picture was too you know to gross and too offensive for most people to say so there's awesome censoring going on there. Some other items that you're going to see kind of built into this picture. If you look above the British soldiers in the original picture, you're going to see just a series of buildings or what was actually originally historically the Customs House. What you see in the picture that actually gets printed in the newspaper is a sign above those soldiers that was not in the original picture. And if you look closely that sign says butchers Hall. That is historically inaccurate, there was no butchers Hall right in that space, the people who printed the picture in the newspapers added that sign themselves. And what we historically believe is that that that was done intentionally is kind of like a subconscious cue for people to associate the word butcher with the soldiers that are shooting into the crowd to kind of make people think that they are like butchers, which we'll also notice in the picture that gets printed in the newspaper, is that the sky is visible whereas in the original It was not the sky makes it look like in the newspaper picture that it's the middle of the day that clearly things were, you know, crystal clear that the British soldiers, you know, shouldn't have been in that much of confusion. Whereas, in reality, we know that that the Boston Massacre on March 7 took place at night, which would have made things even more terrifying for the British soldiers and even more confusing. Remember all they have back in Boston back then are things like gas lamps that that only provides so much light so not only do you have a massive crowd around you. But you also it's in the middle of the night, you have that heightened sense of you know self preservation. There's a lot of confusion going on. That may not have been there ahead have been daylight. So that's another pretty big difference in the picture. A lot of people usually ask me as well. Mr. Judge Why is there a dog right there in the middle of the picture. And that is another piece of subliminal messaging to dogs back then when they appeared in pictures, typically were added to portray a sense of loyalty and of nobility like being you know doing the right thing and being noble in that regard. The dog if you notice is on the side of the Americans that's you know that symbol of nobility that symbol of loyalty, so that that was not an accident either. So we do see here is a pretty fair amount of anti British propaganda, that's built into this picture and then ultimately this article. When the newspapers print the story of what happened here they're the ones that use the word massacre, when they refer to it as the Boston Massacre now is, suppose as a matter of opinion. It's up to you if you want to interpret it as a massacre, but I think most people wouldn't say five people dead, two people wounded,
mainly in self defense,
not really a massacre. But the fact that the newspapers ran with that headline means that the other newspapers across the 13 colonies are also going wrong with that headline. All of that is anti British propaganda and it's being done on purpose. So that's another interesting kind of point there. So we mentioned that the Boston Massacre is going to drive a wedge between the relationship of the American colonies and Great Britain, and if the Boston Massacre had a pretty big impact there in 1770. A few years later, an incident that gets referred to as the HMS gaspee incident is also going to lead to bad blood and a bad relationship between England and America. What the HMS gas B was is a British warship. Now let's talk about that HMS part first HMS back then stands for his or her majesty's ship. It's kind of like the American version of USS that we put in front of all of our ships in the US Navy USS means the United States ship HMS means his or her majesty's ship and in this particular case, we're talking about a British warship called the gaspee. So, the Gatsby's main function in life was to patrol the shores off the coast of Rhode Island and one of the things that it did pretty often was to catch Americans smugglers. They would kind of sail up alongside of British merchant ships that they thought might be guilty of smuggling, they would check the cargo. If they end up finding that that you know person was guilty of smuggling they would tow the ship into the harbor they'd impounded, and the person would get charged with the crime accordingly. So as you can imagine the gaspee is not a particularly popular ship in Rhode Island at all, because remember we said that American smugglers are their local Robin Hood's everybody knows who they are in America, and everybody loves their local
smugglers.
So on one particular day, the HMS guest, he was chasing a very small American ship that it thought was guilty of smuggling and it probably was based on just, just the the shipping lanes and it just appeared pretty shady. So what this very small American ship realized was that because the gas is a warship, it's a big ship, which means it's really heavy, so it sits much lower in the water than the smaller ship does. So what the American small American ship decided to do was to sail into really shallow water, and the gaspee followed it into that shallow water and once you know it. The gaspee ends up getting stuck in the shallow water in the mud and the American ship ends
up getting away.
Now, smart move on the American merchants port. But don't feel too bad for the gaspee here I mean ships running aground happen from time to time all the gaspee had to do is just wait for high tide to come in lifted off the mud and it could continue on its merry way again, but high tide wasn't going to be for a couple hours. So the Gatsby was stuck where it was for the time being. Enter the American colonists in Rhode Island.
What the American colonists realized here is that the gaspee the hated gaspee was stuck in the mud and for the Rhode Islanders they felt like this was the perfect opportunity to exact vengeance on the, the gaspee. So what a bunch of these Rhode Islanders decided to do was to get into small little rowboats word out to the gaspee climbed up the side of the ship. They attack to the crew, they tied most of the mob, they attack the captain and ended up shooting him but the captain survived. They took all of the soldiers, or all of the sailors and the British Captain back onboard the or, you know, back to shore and kind of left them tied up on the beach. They ransacked the ship, they stole anything of value that was off of the carry and then they set it on fire and the whole thing was burned and
destroyed.
As you can imagine, when news live that gets back to England England's going to be really pissed off and they are going to want justice, they want those people who are guilty of burning the gas fee to be brought to justice. What we see is that the British soldiers go through the area of Rhode Island looking for eyewitnesses. And wouldn't you know it's not a single person in Rhode Island saw anything that happened, or can name any names. This frustrates England so much to the point where England is going to hire homeless people to act as eyewitnesses in the case. Eventually it comes out that these homeless people were hired as eyewitnesses the entire case falls apart and ultimately nobody is found guilty of burning gaspee. So, if the Boston Massacre upset a lot of Americans towards England, then the HMS gaspee incidents,
upset a lot of British people towards America.
So the relationship between the two sides now is deteriorating pretty rapidly. Which brings us now to the last major topic of our lecture for the day and it is the Tea Act of 1773. So, what we need in order for the story to make sense is to understand a little bit about what's going on right now in 1773. There is a company in England right now called the East India trading company, and it's one of the biggest companies in England right now, it has you know multiple headquarters across the entire world. It employs thousands of British subjects across the world, it generates, you know, thousands or probably even 10s or even maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes a year for the British government. It's a big business and the British government doesn't want to see this business go under. But the problem by 1773, is that the, the company the, the East India trading company is on the verge of financial collapse, one of their biggest products, T. 's is losing its value worldwide the demand for tea is dropping all over the place right around the same time that the company is now massively over producing it. And when you combine those two things together we talked about this previously in the semester when you have a product that's really high in supply and very low in demand. The price is going to drop worldwide. That's exactly what's happening here to the
East India trading company to a
company by 1773, as we said is on the verge of financial collapse and the parliaments the British government doesn't want to see it go under. So, what parliament in essence decides to do is to give the East India trading company, a bailout to financial bailout so to speak and that bailout comes in the form of the Tea Act of 1773.
Now, keep in mind here that because of laws that were passed previously called the Navigation Acts, the American colonies are already required to purchase stuff only coming from England. We also have already talked about how Americans have been, you know, smuggling things in for a long time now, so that law isn't necessarily always being followed but it's still in place and nonetheless still being enforced nonetheless. So what Parliament figures to itself here with this Tea Act of 1773, how they're going to help the company with this is going to allow the company now to ship tea directly to America, rather than the usual of requiring the company to ship the Tea to England first, and then from England ship it to America.
That's going to help the company right off the bat,
because this is going to allow the company to avoid paying taxes when they shipped their tea into England directly like they had to previously, by being able to ship their tea directly to America, they get to skip that whole tax in England in the first place. And of course less taxes means cheaper tea that they can, you know, sell to the American colonists. Another major problems the company had had to this point is that most of America right now is getting their tea from their smugglers. Dutch tea specifically was being smuggled into the American colonies for a long time.
And because it was being smuggled in, it was, you know, kind of undercutting it British East India trading company Tea which was hurting their, their business as well.
So, what Parliament figured to itself here is that by allowing the company to ship directly to America to avoid the tax and by shipping directly to America, they didn't have to pay any middlemen to ship the product for them, that that was going to be able to allow the British East India trading company to reduce the price of its tea by so much that it would end up being cheaper than the Dutch tea that was being smuggled in any way that they thought was in essence would help the company out, who would allow the company to sell off their excess tea to the American colonies. The British Parliament would still, you know, make money off of the tax on tea in America because the Townshend act was still in place. And that Americans would be getting really cheap tea anyway, so as far as parliament was concerned everybody shouldn't be a big winner on this tea after 1773 bales the company out, Americans get cheap tea and Parliament gets to tax it. Of course the company loves this law Parliament loves this law, but Americans hate this law, surprise, surprise, if, if, Beijing was a, an Olympic sport, Americans would get the gold, silver and bronze every year. That's how good we are at it. So why did the Americans hate this law so much for a whole bunch of different reasons. First, it undercuts Americans ability to ship tea from England back to America.
That's going to hurt American businesses right there American businesses
typically purchase their tea in England, and then shipped it back to America for profit, but now that the British East India trading company gets to ship their tea directly to America that cuts out those American businesses so that's going to hurt them right there. The tea also is going to have a tax still attached to it, which everybody hated and that's going to frustrate them as well. And what you also need to keep in mind is that this East India trading company tea is really old, because the company had such a massive surplus of tea. What that meant is that they were warehousing this tea in warehouses in England for a long time or in other parts of the world for a long time that he had just been sitting there, which means it would be getting dusty it is getting moldy. It's now a months old at this point which means it's pretty stale. So Americans were pissed that they're being forced to buy this really crappy tea with a tax on it, and they're not really given much of a choice because it's it's undercutting the British. The
Dutch tea, like I said.
Most Americans hate this law, obviously,
but once again to city of Boston decides to take this anger out to an unhealthy level. So what the citizens of Boston, of course decided to do in December 1773, is to sneak on board. These British East India trading company ships. They are going to dress themselves up very poorly as Native Americans. I don't know why they dress themselves up very poorly as Native Americans because nobody,
nobody was was fooled by it.
And what they decided to do is take those crates of tea and dump it into the Boston Harbor and what becomes known as the Boston Tea Party, somewhere around 10,000 British dollars worth of tea was destroyed during the Boston Tea Party, and people joked that four days afterwards the entire harbor smelled like tea because of how many tea leaves were dumped into the harbor.
That's is a lot of my 10,000 British dollars back then would have been the equivalent of today's standards it's somewhere around $750,000, about three quarters of a million dollars in today's money that is not something that you can sweep under the rug, you can't say, oops we accidentally destroyed $750,000 by today's standards of your product are bad doesn't work that way. The company is going to be really pissed off about this but more importantly parliament is going to be extremely pissed off about this and Parliament for them, the Boston Tea Party is the mental psychological, emotional breaking point. That's when Parliament finally decides to say you know what we've tried, we tried be civil about this we tried to, you know, to, to enforce peace by having soldiers inside the city of Boston. You guys responded with, you know, attacking our British soldiers to the point where they had to defend themselves. We tried repealing laws like the Stamp Act we repealed most of the townshend acts. We tried being civil with you guys and it's just not working. So what we're going to do now is try the more painful method what parliament is ultimately going to do here is to pass a series of new laws will becomes known as the course of Acts, and that is where we will pick up with an our next lecture with the Coercive Acts.
So if you guys have any questions please feel free to hit me up via email, don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button if you really enjoyed this content. Haha Just kidding, you can tell I've stuck inside for too long. But again if you have any questions please feel free to reach out, check out the PowerPoint presentation will be posted not too long after this. And again, keep an eye on the Connect assignment, due dates.
