Charleston's Tea Parties, 1773-1774

Everyone has heard of the Boston Tea Party. Well, maybe not everyone, but it is one of the most famous episodes among the many events that led up to the American Revolution and War of Independence. But how many people know that Charleston, South Carolina had three tea parties? The first took place just a few days before the more famous Boston event, and was thus the first tea party in America. It was a more genteel affair,  at least on the surface.  [Image: Charleston Harbor, c. 1780] 

On December 1, 1773, an East Indiaman, the London, arrived in Charleston harbor carrying a large consignment of tea. Christopher Gadsden, a merchant or factor, called a “Mass Meeting” of local Whigs and Liberty Boys to discuss how to prevent the tea being sold. They called in the three merchants who had agreed to receive the tea. After some “threats and flattery” they persuaded the merchants not to receive the tea. The captain of the London and the owner of the wharf where the ship was moored received letters threatening them if they did not move ship out into the harbor. Before that could happen, however, the collector of customs seized the tea and put it in cellar of the Exchange to await the hoped-for resolution of the tax dispute. Threats had been made but no violence occurred. It was a relatively genteel affair compared to that in Boston. Although the tea was not sold, the local firebrands were upset that it was landed in the city at all, especially after they learned what happened in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In the latter two cities, the tea-bearing ships had been prevented from landing at all. They had to return to Britain with their cargoes.

Charleston's second tea party took place in July 1774. A merchant ship with the ironic name of Magna Carta, unloaded three crates of tea which were registered with customs officials at the Exchange. Since the first "party" the year before, opponents of British policies had established a General Committee to act as a watchdog for violations of the embargo. The General Committee summoned the ship's captain and demanded an explanation. Captain Maitland claimed that he was unaware his ship was carrying the tea. He offered to dump it into the river at his own cost. The customs officials refused to let him pay for and take the tea. The Liberty Boys decided Maitland was being duplicitous and took direct action. They aroused a mob of several hundred angry citizens and set out with tar and feathers to teach him a painful, possibly deadly lesson. Fortunately for Maitland, he learned of their approach and escaped to another British ship in the harbor. The Liberty Boys found the tea on the ship and took it to the Exchange to be stored. [Image: Charleston Harbor, 1773] 

The third Charleston tea party was a bit more like the Boston event in that it involved actual dumping of the tea into the harbor. In November 1774 the ship that had rescued Maitland, the Britannia, arrived carrying seven chests of tea. The captain, Samuel Ball, repeated Maitland’s plea, stating that he did not know of the presence of the “mischievous drug” on his ship. Ball was not being truthful, but the General Committee accepted his explanation and blamed the three Charleston merchants who had agreed to accept the consignments of tea. The committee convinced the merchants to dump the tea into the Cooper River at a loss to themselves. The memory of the liberty mob action against Maitland may have helped to persuade them. A large crowd gathered to watch them pour the tea into the water, but there was no violence. Peter Timothy reported the event with some glee in his South Carolina Gazette, calling the tea dumping “an oblation to Neptune.” He reported that the crowd dispersed afterwards as if nothing had happened.

Why is the Boston Tea Party so well known, while Charleston's tea parties were almost forgotten? One reason is the dramatic nature of the Boston event. The partygoers, members of Boston's Sons of Liberty, dressed as Native Americans and attacked the tea-laden merchant ship yelling war whoops and brandishing tomahawks. The image was violent and made a lasting impression, and throughout the war that followed, British cartoonists often portrayed the American rebels as Indians. Another, and even more important reason for the fame of the Boston Tea Party, is the British government's severe reaction.  Parliament passed a series of Coercion Acts (1774) designed to punish Boston and Massachusetts for tolerating such a wanton destruction of private property. The acts closed the port of Boston, suspended the colonial charter, and shut down the regular courts. They were to remain in effect until Massachusetts paid for the destroyed tea and the Crown was satisfied that order had been restored. The effect of the acts was to stifle the local economy and put Massachusetts under direct British rule. A third reason is that the history of the Revolution was long dominated by northern scholars, especially New Englanders, and they gave scant attention to southern events. Regional prejudice played a part, but after the Civil War, so did the perception that the Slave dependent South did not fit well into the narrative of a war for liberty.  

The government in London hoped that the Coercion Acts would deter other colonies from supporting resistance to British policies. The "Intolerable" Acts, as they soon became known in the colonies, had the opposite effect. By punishing the entire colony of Massachusetts rather than the individuals involved in dumping the tea, the acts aroused fears in the other colonies of being treated in a similar manner. The acts strengthened the influence of  radicals such as Sam Adams in Boston and Christopher Gadsden in South Carolina, who were already demanding independence in practice if not in name. 

Further Reading:

Stanly Godbold, Jr., and Robert Woody, Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983.

Daniel McDonough, Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens: The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots. Susquehanna University Press, 2000.

George C. Rogers, Jr., "The Charleston Tea Party: The Significance of December 3, 1773" The South Carolina Historical Magazine, 75, No.3 (July 1974), pp. 153-168.

Jordan Baker, "The Charleston Tea Parties," The Charleston Tea Parties – Legends of America

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