The Boston Tea Party

Summary

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American History Hit: The Boston Tea Party

Host: Don Wildman
Guest: Professor Benjamin Karp, Brooklyn College
Date: December 18, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the rich and tumultuous history of the Boston Tea Party, exploring what really happened on the night of December 16, 1773—one of the most iconic acts of defiance in early American history. Host Don Wildman is joined by Professor Benjamin Karp, author of Defiance of the Patriots, to separate the facts from the myths. The discussion uncovers the planning, the people, and the political context behind this turning point in the American Revolution, with a particular focus on why the event unfolded as it did and how it resonated through history.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene: Boston in Crisis

• Backdrop: Boston is tense, with thousands gathering at the Old South Meeting House on December 16, 1773, to decide what to do about three shiploads of British tea anchored in the harbor, under strict British customs law (01:32).
• Context: The meeting is packed, tempers flaring over "taxation without representation," and the Royal Navy looms nearby, enforcing the Crown’s authority (03:00-04:00).
• Ships Involved:
  • The Dartmouth (arrived Nov 28)
  • The Eleanor (Dec 2)
  • The Beaver (Dec 15, just out of smallpox quarantine) (05:00)
• Quote:

  "Tensions are high on the issue of how to effectively defy the British tax still being levied on American tea imports in the wake of tax breaks to the British tea traders, the East India Company...another example of the Crown's unfair impositions on the Americans." — Don Wildman (03:40)

The Meeting House Debate & The Catalysts

• Key Figures: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Thomas Young (07:16).
• Meeting Dynamics: The gathering was not an official Boston town meeting but an assembly "of the body of the people"—including people from surrounding towns (07:16).
• Samuel Adams' Role:
  • He famously declares, "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country," possibly acting as a pre-arranged signal (07:40).
  • Debate: Was this a secret signal to initiate the Tea Party?
    "We don't know, because people who participated...kept it secret for another 50 years…if the notes aren't there, there's nothing for historians to read." — Prof. Benjamin Karp (09:47)

The Action: The Night of the Tea Party

• Preparation & Secrecy:
  • Evidence of prior coordination; about 100 men don disguises as Native Americans (09:47).
  • "They were prepared for this eventuality...if we can’t send [the tea] back and we can’t land it, the only choice is to destroy it." — Prof. Benjamin Karp (09:47)
• The Crew:
  • Mostly young men and teens, mixed occupations—some merchants, many craftsmen and laborers, all men as far as records show (11:13).
  • No high-profile figures like Samuel Adams participated directly in the destruction; they ostentatiously remained at the meeting for plausible deniability (12:20).
  • "Principal leaders basically stayed behind at the front of the meeting...very ostentatiously staying behind so that the most recognizable figures ... had plausible deniability." — Prof. Benjamin Karp (12:20)

The Act of Destruction

• Boarding the Ships:
  • Divided into three groups, they move with discipline and order (15:14).
  • Ship’s captain provides keys and candles; no harm to the ship or crew—only the tea is targeted (16:55).
  • They hoist and smash open 342 chests—46 tons of tea—dumping it into the harbor; some joke that they're brewing “one large cup of tea for the fish” (16:55).
• Violence?
  • The event is mostly nonviolent, though one man, Charles Connors, is beaten for attempting to steal tea, and later shamed publicly (19:38).
  • "They were destructive of property, but mostly not destructive of persons." — Prof. Benjamin Karp (19:38)
  • Supports theory of discipline: "We are only destroying this one commodity that we find constitutionally offensive." (18:10)

The Political and Social Aftermath

• Why Dress as Native Americans?
  • Disguise was not for anonymity ("everyone knew who these guys were"), but to send the message: do not identify us, and to shield the town itself from blame. It also had symbolic meaning, representing a break from both British and Indigenous identities (21:19).
  • "It's a way of saying we are not European, but we are also not Native. We are something in between." — Prof. Benjamin Karp (21:19)
• Public Perception:
  • The community primarily looked on—the Tea Party involved hundreds or thousands as onlookers; the night's events were an open secret (12:20).
• Aftermath Logistics:
  • Some tea washed ashore or bobbed up with the tide—apprentice boys were sent to disperse the remaining tea (22:38).
• Value:
  • 46 tons (92,000 pounds, ~18.5 million cups), worth £10,000 then (~$1 million in 2023 dollars)—a huge economic blow to the East India Company (20:35).
• Duration:
  • Preparations and tension lasted from early November to December 16, 1773 (20:22).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Setting the Stage:

  "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country."
  — Samuel Adams, as quoted by Don Wildman and discussed for its possible secret meaning (07:40)

• On Oral History and Secrecy:

  "People who participated in the Boston Tea Party basically kept it secret for another 50 years."
  — Prof. Benjamin Karp (09:47)

• On the Disguises:

  "The disguises weren’t actually meant to conceal anybody’s identities...it's meant to send the message: don’t tell anyone who we are."
  — Prof. Benjamin Karp (21:19)

• On Discipline and Purpose:

  "We are not just wantonly destroying things and we are not thieves. We are only destroying this one commodity that we find constitutionally offensive."
  — Prof. Benjamin Karp (18:10)

• On George Hughes, a Participant:

  "He was at the Boston Massacre. He participated in the Boston Tea Party, he helped to precipitate the tarring and feathering of John Malcolm...the Forrest Gump of revolutionary Boston."
  — Prof. Benjamin Karp (15:45)

• On the Community Aspect:

  "Hundreds, thousands, maybe even thousands of people still went down to the wharves to watch this happen. So there is broader community involvement."
  — Prof. Benjamin Karp (12:20)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Boston’s Climate and Prelude: 01:32–07:16
• Insiders at the Meeting, Secret Signals: 07:16–09:47
• Who Were the Tea Partiers? 11:10–12:04
• Who Stayed Behind? Deniability: 12:20
• Boarding and Dumping the Tea: 15:14–16:55
• Was it Nonviolent? 19:38
• Dress and Symbolism: 21:19
• Aftermath and Fallout: 22:38

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Conclusion & Teaser for Next Episode

The episode concludes with a reflection on how the Boston Tea Party transformed from an act the British called treason into a foundational story of American patriotism, and hints at the next episode's deeper discussion: why tea was such a contentious topic, broader colonial reactions, and the British reaction—the so-called "Coercive Acts" or "Intolerable Acts."

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This summary captures the insight, energy, and vivid storytelling of Don Wildman and Benjamin Karp as they re-examine the Boston Tea Party with nuance and scholarly clarity—making a pivotal night in American history feel immediate and deeply human.

Transcript

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[Don Wildman]

Hi there, it's Don. Next year, 2026 marks two hundred and fifty years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. You'll be hearing the term semiquincentennial a lot, along with plenty about the long, messy, ultimately inspiring story of the American Revolution. So let's get a head start, shall we? Today we're going back to a cold December night, December 16, 1773 to be exact, to bear witness to a rebellious act the British called treason that Americans would come to celebrate, steeped, as it were, in a hot revolutionary the Boston Tea Party. On a frigid December night, a man rushes through the dark alleys and passageways of Boston, Massachusetts, the harbor behind him. His way is lit only by the moon and the occasional glow from hearth fires and candlelight in people's homes. His heart beats hard at his chest. Adrenaline courses through his blood. His body aches from the night's labors, his fingers and toes numbed from the cold. At home, finally, the man slips inside and lights a candle, briefly examining in a broken looking glass his sooted face streaked with ochre paint, the feathered headdress upon his crown. He rips it off and washes himself clean. No evidence can remain. In years to come, this act of public protest in the harbor will be deemed heroic, a courageous demonstration of colonial patriotism. But for tonight, the Boston Tea Party, as it will one day be known, is a flagrant destruction of private property and a serious act of treason against the British government. Hello, and welcome back to American history hit. I'm your host, Don Wildman. And in this episode, we're getting back to basics, one of the legendary events of colonial American history, something we learned about in elementary school. The Boston Tea Party, still misunderstood by many. What happened? Who was there? How was it planned? Today, in the company of Professor Benjamin Karp of Brooklyn College, we're about to find out. The Old South Meeting House, a brick structure on the corner of Main and Milk streets, is appointed with white trim and a tall, elegant steeple. It's December 16, 1773, and despite the chilly temperatures outside, folks have been gathering in the Thousands since around 4pm Some members traveling upwards of 20 miles by horseback and carriage. Now this building, the largest structure in colonial Boston at the time, is packed to the rafters and heeded by the pitched debate and discussion underway. Tensions are high on the issue of how to effectively defy the British tax still being levied on American tea imports in the wake of tax breaks to the British tea traders, the East India Company. More about this in the next episode. But it's just another example of the Crown's unfair impositions on the Americans. Taxation without representation, a gross violation of their rights, at least as perceived by the colonists. This issue has been brought to a head by the arrival of three separate shipments of tea currently afloat at Griffin's Wharf in the harbor. The first ship, the Dartmouth, arrived on November 28. A cargo carrier and whaler, it is owned by the Rotches, an affluent family of Nantucket Quakers. Under British customs law, the Dartmouth's cargo has to be unloaded, with duties paid within a limit of 20 days since its arrival, which is tomorrow. But the colonists refuse to pay the duty and in turn, the royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson, refuses to allow the tea shipment to leave. It must be unloaded and monies must be paid. Complicating the matter, two more tea shipments have also arrived. The Eleanor on December 2 and the Beaver on December 15, having just come out of a smallpox quarantine in the outer harbor. It is a circumstance fraught with frustration and futility. All the while, British warships stand ready in the harbor to enforce the law, under threat of musket and cannon if necessary. At the front of the Old South Meeting House, prominent figures in the Sons of Liberty, a political organization mobilized against the control and taxations of the British government, preside over the gathering. John Hancock has riled up the crowd, demanding that his countrymen take a patriotic stand. Let every man do what is right in his own eyes, he says. For more details, I asked the author of Defiance of the Patriots, the Boston Tea Party and the Making of America, Benjamin Karp.

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

A number of prominent Sons of Liberty are at the head of this meeting. Ones you've heard of, like John Hancock and Samuel Adams, a others you might not be as familiar with. Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Thomas Young. There's a loyalist, an anonymous loyalist, who leaves an account of this, who lists all of the really prominent people who are at the head of these meetings. These were not official Boston town meetings. These were meetings of the body of the people, and they included people from some of the surrounding towns as well.

[Don Wildman]

Sam Adams has dispatched Francis Rotch, a member of the Nantucket family who owns the Dartmouth and the Beaver, to negotiate with Governor Hutchinson for permission to send his ships back to London. Ratch, the son of an English born colonist who was himself born on Nantucket, has worked hard to make his Quaker family successful in the whaling and shipping industry. But he now finds himself trapped between the colonists, the customs collector and the governor, not to mention the British warships and their cannons. He reports that the governor persists in his refusal. He will not allow the tea to be returned to Britain. Between the impatience of an audience numbering 5,000, having waited more than three hours, the passionate oratory, and the general indignation over colonial demands being utterly ignored, the atmosphere at the Old South Meeting House is electric. Finally, Samuel Adams, lean built, with his dark hair tied back and powdered white, rises to speak. This meeting can do nothing more to save the country. A Bostonian, John Andrews, arrives outside the meeting house, but he cannot penetrate the crowd making it no further than the porch. He hears the meeting called to a close and returns home to his tea, unaware the night's activities have only just begun. There is some debate over what happens next. Was Adam's statement at the meeting's close a secret signal? Or just a coincidence that as the meeting breaks up. A battle cry is heard at the door of the meeting house, the cry resounding through the meeting hall, pews and galleries. George Hughes, a Boston shoemaker, recalled decades later, a loud voice shouting, boston Harbor. A teapot. This night, on cue, a crowd of colonists dressed in Native American garbage proceeds down Milk street to Griffin's Wharf, where the ships are moored. The Dartmouth, Eleanor, and the Beaver all float in Boston waters laden with tea owned by the East India Company.

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

The tradition states that Samuel Adams is giving a secret signal when he says this meeting can do nothing more to save the country. It does seem clear that some kind of prior coordination must have been involved, but we don't know, because people who participated in the Boston Tea Party basically kept it secret for another 50 years. So we don't have a kind of firm idea of like, okay, here's the plan that was in place, and they followed this and they followed that. Like, that's lost to historians, because, you know, I don't know if you watch the wire, but you don't take notes on a criminal conspiracy, right? So, you know, if the notes aren't there, there's nothing for historians to read. But it does seem as if there was prior coordination and some sort of prearranged signal that some of these guys had already prepared. Disguises. They were already dressed up. They were prepared for this eventuality, that Governor Hutchinson was going to say no. And they say, that's it. The deadline is about to expire. If the tea is not unloaded, then by law, it will be landed, and we'll have given up our opportunity to do something about the tea. If we can't send it back and we can't land it, the only choice is to destroy it. And so they marched down. I think it was about 100 guys who boarded the three ships. You know, some of them stood on the wharf and kind of stood guard and were involved in crowd control. Other guys boarded the ships, opened the holds, used block and tackle to lift these heavy crates of tea on board the decks. In all, it's 46 tons of tea that they're about to move. They chop open these chests and they dump the loose tea leaves over the sides of the gunwales.

[Don Wildman]

Who was in this crew that was boarding the ship?

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

I mean, the answer is, it's hard to know for sure because people didn't start coming forward until 50 years later. They really swore each other to secrecy and stuck to that. But from what I've been able to reconstruct, it's A really interesting mix. They were mostly younger men and also some teenage boys. Most of them were local, but some may well have been from out of town. There were a couple guys who were Harvard educated or might be described as wealthier merchants, but others were craftsmen, you know, worked in various waterfront crafts like sail making or caulking, you know, or boat building or something like that, a variety of trades. Paul Revere was a silversmith and an engraver, you know, and then also other people who were probably laborers, right, and coming from even humbler backgrounds or apprentices for that matter. So it's really an interesting mix of Boston slash New England life. All men as far as we can tell. I don't have any evidence that any of them were men of color. It's possible, but I don't know for sure.

[Don Wildman]

I mean, this was a three hour meeting at the old meeting house there. And that's how stoked up this crowd is. Finally, when they head out to the wharf, it's a fraction of those people. I mean, thousands of people were involved in this whole evening. Is Sam Adams part of the crew?

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

Definitely not. That's one thing we know from that anonymous loyalist account that I mentioned that very explicitly says that the principal leaders basically stayed behind at the front of the meeting. And they were like, no, no, everybody stay. We have more speeches we want to give about American rights, like, but in other words, very ostentatiously staying behind so that the most recognizable figures of the resistance, you know, had plausible deniability. We were at the head of the meeting. We didn't know what was going on. And Even though only 100 men were involved in actually unloading the tea and dumping it over the side, hundreds, thousands, maybe even thousands of people still went down to the wharves to watch this happen. So there is broader community involvement.

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[Don Wildman]

The imposters are mostly silent as they approach the docks, brandishing hatchets styled as tomahawks used by the indigenous people of the East Coast. Upon arriving at the wharf, they divide into three groups, each with an appointed leader. George Hughes, that Boston shoemaker, is commanded by his crew captain to obtain the keys to the hatches and a dozen candles from the ship's captain. George Hughes is one name that has come down the ages. Explain his role in this.

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

Well, he's such a fascinating character. You can compare him to kind of the Forrest Gump of revolutionary Boston. He was at the Boston Massacre. He participated in the Boston Tea Party, he helped to precipitate the tarring and feathering of John Malcolm, and then he serves on privateers during the Revolution. He's a diminutive man, an impoverished shoemaker his whole life. He doesn't seem to have been very involved in politics before the 1770s. And then all of a sudden, right, he's this ordinary guy participating in events like this. And the reason we know so much about him is that He in the 1830s, a couple of as told to memoirs are published about him. A couple of different guys find him in upstate New York or in Boston when he Visits, and they interview him and they tell his story, and he reflects on these events when most of the people who had participated in these events by then, by the 1830s, had died. And so he's known as kind of one of the last surviving participants. He has his portrait painted, which you can go see at revolutionary spaces in Boston. So he's an interesting figure. And the scholar, the late scholar Alfred Young, wrote a brilliant book called the shoemaker and the tea party about his life and what his memoir says about how the revolution was remembered in the 1830s.

[Don Wildman]

The captain complies, giving over the keys and candles with only one the colonists do no damage to the ship or its rigging. Silently, surreptitiously, with just the occasional clink of hatch locks being opened, the crews jump into. The ship holds passing chests of tea out. The largest of the wooden chests, lined with lead and filled with loose tea leaves, weigh over 400 pounds each. So the parties are having to work in groups, lifting chests together. Even the smaller chests carrying the more expensive, higher grade tea weigh between 65 and 75 pounds. This is a test of teamwork, strength, and sheer determination. On deck, the chests are broken into and their valuable contents dumped into the water. 342 chests in all, filled with coveted Chinese tea, are pitched into the icy waters, which fast become a sea of floating tea, causing some to snicker about making one large cup of tea for the fish. It's such a surreptitious act. I mean, they board in silence. It's a whole kind of secret move. But I'm always surprised that there wasn't some sort of fight to keep them off. I mean, the crew alone, right?

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

The royal navy watches this happen. And there are tons of British troops on Castle island in the harbor. So this all happens right in the, you know, but the army and navy couldn't act without the governor's say so, and the governor couldn't act without his counsel's say so. And one of governor Hutchinson's big frustrations was that he could never get the council to do anything because the council was answerable to the Massachusetts house of Representatives. That's why the coercive acts, the Massachusetts government act, says, okay, from now on, the council is going to be appointed by royal authorities, not by the Massachusetts house of Representatives. We want to make them less accountable so that if Bostonians are behaving treasonously, you know, the governor can kind of call in the troops. So it's, you know, they're not super surreptitious. They're being noisy. But what they are is disciplined. They don't harm anything else on the ship. They actually break a lock and then supposedly like replace it, you know, to kind of show like, we are not just wantonly destroying things and we are not thieves. We're not allowing anyone to pocket the tea for themselves. We are only destroying this one commodity that we find constitutionally offensive. And so they do it in plain sight, but they are also being disciplined about what they're doing.

[Don Wildman]

But it is at night, right?

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

Well, the sun has gone down, but it's December in Boston, so sure.

[Don Wildman]

While the cargo is offloaded, wistful eyes watch the tea on the decks and floating and try to steal some away. It is often said that the Boston Tea Party was a non violent protest. I asked Benjamin Karp how that measures up.

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

They were destructive of property, but mostly not destructive of persons. There is one guy who's beaten up at the Boston Tea Party. A man named Charles Connors is caught pocketing tea. He was one of the members of the guys boarding the ships and he starts pocketing tea for himself. And they're like, nuh, that's not what we're about. And they beat him up and they nail his coat to his front door and they say this guy was, you know, trying to mess with us and they kind of shame him as a result. So he is beaten up. But the thing to remember is that the Boston Tea Party happens after weeks of trying to intimidate the merchants and the ship owners. You know, the merchants were assaulted at their homes and their place of business and menaced and, you know, shot was fired into the street. So there's a backdrop of violence, even though the Tea Party itself was mostly nonviolent.

[Don Wildman]

How long did it all go on really?

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

From late November is when it really torques up. I would say from early November to December 16th is when the tea crisis is a sort of active thing. Pretty much every day in Boston.

[Don Wildman]

For three hours in the depth of night, the ships are emptied of their entire cargoes. As Benjamin mentioned, this meant 46 tons, over 92,000 pounds of tea in 342 crates. If you're a tea drinker, that's around 18.5 million cups. In 1773 it was worth around 10,000 British pounds. In 2023, that's around a million American dollars. A costly blow to the East India Company. The men, remember, return to their homes still in native dress. They don't speak or share identities. Mission accomplished. I asked Benjamin why the tea partiers were dressed as indigenous Americans.

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

This is so hard. You know, I have a whole chapter in my book about this. You know, one thing that's clear to me is that the disguises weren't actually meant to conceal anybody's identities. I mean, Boston only has 16,000 people, and less than a quarter of that would have been adult men. And you knew how your neighbor walked or your cousin carried himself. Everybody knew who these guys were. But what the disguises were meant to kind of say is don't tell anyone who we are. Right. It's meant to send the message. And it's also meant to send the message like, these aren't Bostonians. We have to all pretend that these are outsiders so that the town of Boston won't be blamed for this act of property destruction. But there may well have been symbolic meaning as well. The scholar Phil Deloria, who's now at Harvard, wrote a great book called Playing Indian about the history of white people dressing as Native Americans, looking at high school mascots and Boy Scouts and things like that. And he talks about the Boston Tea Party in his very first chapter and kind of saying, it's a way of saying we are not European, but we are also not Native. We are something in between. You know, you remember that we are white guys underneath, even though we are trying to adopt the fearsomeness and independence of Mohawks or of Narragansett. Yeah.

[Don Wildman]

In the morning hours, some tea still remained afloat at considerable distance from the ships lodged against the shore or still bobbing on the surface.

[Professor Benjamin Karp]

Somewhat comically, the tide was out, and so the tea actually begins clumping above the waterline. And so they send a few teenaged apprentice boys to kind of be like, all right, go out in little boats and bat at these piles so that it dissolves into the water and floats out to sea.

[Don Wildman]

Deed now done. Tea lost to the waters, taxes unpaid, the colonists spirits are now a more potent brew than ever, steeped in a rising tide of revolution. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of American History hit. Join me next time as Benjamin Karp and I explore the buildup to the Boston Tea Party and its place in the Revolution. Why was tea such a sore topic by the 1770s? Besides those who were present at the event, how did American colonists feel about the Tea Party in its immediate aftermath? And what were the coercive acts that the British forced on the Bostonians as reprisal? Until then, don't forget to, like, follow and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. See you next time. Foreign.

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