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The Boston Tea Party: Costume Optional?
IntroductionIn
an 1884 article reprint of an earlier newspaper story about the Boston Tea Party,
an editor at The Bay State Monthly remarked, "This account of the Boston
Tea-Party … taken, verbatim, from The Boston Evening Post, Monday, December
20, 1773 … adds another link in the chain of evidence to prove that the Patriots
were disguised as Indians." Why did the editor feel there needed to be a "chain
of evidence" about that point? Was there ever any doubt that the Patriots were
disguised as Indians? What really happened at the Boston Tea Party? What sources
can help us find out? Note: Learn about
other famous tea parties held to protest British taxes in the complementary EDSITEment
lesson, Revolutionary Tea Parties and the Reasons
for Revolution Guiding Question:What
really happened at the Boston Tea Party? How can we "know" what happened at an
historical event of the distant past? Learning ObjectivesAfter
completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to: - Retell
the events of the Boston Tea Party.
- List some types of sources historians
use to reconstruct what happened in the past.
Preparing to Teach
this Lesson- Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested
materials and other useful websites. Download and print out selected documents
and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
- For background
information, consult the following EDSITEment resources:
- Samuel
Adams, on the White House website,
a link from The American President.
- An Outline
of American History (1994), Chapter Three: Boston "Tea Party", on From
Revolution to Reconstruction, a link from History
Matters. (NOTE: The section on the Tea Party begins on page 6 and continues
through Page 8. Click on "Next Page" or "Previous Page" to navigate as desired.)
- America During
the Age of Revolution, 1764-1775, a timeline available on American
Memory.
- Tax History
Project, a comprehensive article on the events leading up to and following
the Boston Tea Party, with an emphasis on taxes, available via a link from History
Matters.
Suggested Activities
1 Introduce
students to the quote from The Bay State Monthly and brief discussion about it
included in the Introduction,
above. Discuss with students the ways we can know what happened more than 200
years ago. Create a list on chart paper or the blackboard of what the students
already know about the Boston Tea Party, including the reasons behind the protest. Next,
break the class into small groups with each assigned to read and analyze one of
the following first-hand accounts of the Boston Tea Party. (NOTE: Another option
would be for each group to read and respond to more than one-or all-of the accounts.)
Download, copy and distribute a set of
Questions about the accounts, available here as a PDF document, and have students
answer as many of the questions as possible. Let students know that not all questions
will relate to all accounts, and they should answer only those questions relevant
to their account. - "The
Boston Tea-Party" (The Bay State Monthly. Volume 1, Issue 4. April,
1884.), available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website American
Memory. The article starts near the top of page 261 and continues on the succeeding
two pages; use "Next Page" and "Previous Page" to navigate as desired. (NOTE:
This account, taken verbatim from the December 20, 1773, article in the Boston
Evening Post, is the lengthiest and most difficult of all the first-hand accounts
cited here. Assign it accordingly or not at all if there is no appropriate group.)
- Camps and Firesides of the Revolution. Hart, Albert Bushnell with
Mabel Hill: "The
Boston Tea Party from the MASSACHUSETTS GAZETTE (1773)", available via a link
from the EDSITEment resource Internet Public Library.Though
this brief account is told in straightforward language, help your students understand
the meanings of these words, as used in the document:
- Repaired: went
- Stove:
broke
- Purloined: stolen
- Camps and Firesides of
the Revolution. Hart, Albert Bushnell with Mabel Hill: "Another
Account of the Tea Party BY JOHN ANDREWS (1773)", also available via a link
from Internet Public Library. The account runs
from page 164 to page 166 (use the "find" feature in your browser to locate page
164). In the original document, page 165 had an illustration; as the illustration
is not present online, the page is blank. This brief account is told in straightforward
language, but make sure your students understand that the word "actors," as used
here, refers to those taking action, rather than to thespians.
- "A
Shoemaker and the Tea Party" by George Robert Twelve Hewes, on the EDSITEment
resource History Matters. This account,
more detailed and somewhat more difficult to read than the previous two, is quite
colorful.
- Broadside:
Boston, December 20, on Tuesday last, from American
Memory. In this modern typeset version, read only the section for December
20. Also available is a digitized
copy of the original.
2 After
the groups have completed their work, discuss the different types of resources
used-newspaper accounts, broadsides written for publicity purposes, reminiscences,
letters, and so on. In what way would each of the accounts tend to be biased or
limited in its ability to tell the whole story? Could an author's point of view
explain any information lacking or even exaggerated? For example, why would certain
documents written at the time of the Boston Tea Party avoid including participants'
names? Have students share the answers they
gave to the questions. Use the Boston
Tea Party Fact Chart, available here as a PDF document, to make a list of
(1) facts that all of the accounts had in common, (2) facts that appeared in only
some accounts but that were not contradicted in others, and (3) facts that were
contradicted among the various accounts. Now
have students read a secondary account of the Boston Tea Party, such as the essay
The
Boston Tea Party, available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website
History Matters. Either individually
or as a class, answer the same questions previously answered for the first-hand
accounts. What facts in this article, if any, are contradicted by one or more
of the first-hand accounts? Do the students agree that the version in this secondary
account is as accurate as possible, given any contradictions and the passage of
time, or would the students make some changes? Can we say with confidence that
the story of the Boston Tea Party we tell today is accurate? 3
Students are now ready to work in their groups
to create a newspaper article, letter, broadside, or factual report of their own
featuring the facts they believe to be the correct story of the Boston Tea Party. To
conclude, go back briefly to the chart of what students "knew" about the Boston
Tea Party at the beginning of the lesson. How did their knowledge compare with
the first- and second-hand accounts studied in this lesson? Would their list be
different now? The class has done some real research using primary sources. Do
the students now believe it is or is not possible to get an accurate idea of what
happened two centuries ago? Extending the Lesson- Learn
about other famous tea parties held to protest British taxes in the complementary
EDSITEment lesson, Revolutionary
Tea Parties and the Reasons for Revolution
- Students
interested in learning more about the events leading up to the Boston Tea Party
can start with these EDSITEment resources:
- Students can analyze political cartoons from the
years of protest that preceded the Revolutionary War, such as these from the Tax
History Project, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website History
Matters. If desired, use the Cartoon
Analysis Form available on the EDSITEment resource Digital
Classroom.
- Students can read the
following poems about the Boston Tea Party, written during the 19th century. How
accurate are the accounts? What attitudes about our nation's formative years do
they express?
- Students
can also read more by and about Ralph Waldo Emerson, who coined the phrase "The
shot heard 'round the world," and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. A
Biography of Emerson and Biography
of Holmes are available on From
Revolution to Reconstruction, a link from the EDSITEment resource History
Matters.
- The Boston Tea Party was a grand example of street
theater protest, something we often associate now with the 1960s. For more about
that era of protest, look at the online exhibit The
Psychedelic Sixties: Literary Tradition and Social Change from the Special
Collections Department of the University of Virginia Library, available through
a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Center
for the Liberal Arts. Students can expand their knowledge of the protest movements
of the sixties by interviewing eyewitnesses. They can also conduct a poll about
attitudes today toward those protests of the past. Students can conclude their
study by making comparisons between the two eras of protests.
- Consider
using two related EDSITEment lessons—Colonial Broadsides and the American Revolution
and Colonial Broadsides: A Student-Created Play.
Selected
EDSITEment Websites- American
Memory
- A
letter, from Tom Bowline, to his worthy messmates, the renowned Sons of Neptune,
belonging to the Port of New-York
- America
During the Age of Revolution, 1764-1775
- Annapolis
- Broadside:
Boston, December 1, 1773
- Broadside:
Boston, December 20, on Tuesday last
- Broadside:
Tea Destroyed by Indians
- The
long expected tea ship has arrived
- America's
Library
- Chestertown
Tea Party Festival: A Local Legacy
- Chestertown
Tea Party Festival (photo)
- "A
Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party" by Oliver Wendell Holmes
- The
Library of Congress
- Chestertown
Tea Party Festival
- The
New York Historical Society
- Independence
and its Enemies in New York
- A
letter, from Tom Bowline, to his worthy messmates, the renowned Sons of Neptune,
belonging to the Port of New-York
- The
long expected tea ship has arrived
- To
the Public, the Sense of The City
- The
American President
- The
American Verse Project
- The
Avalon Project at the Yale School of Law
- Center
for the Liberal Arts
- Digital
Classroom
- History
Matters
- Internet
Public Library
- Links
to the Past
- Victorian
Web
Standards Alignment
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