Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas: Toward a Global HistoryMain MenuThe Spanish PacificThe China Trade Era19th-Century US PacificTimelineby Andrea LedesmaGalleryCollection of all images, documents, and photos featured on this site.AcknowledgementsCaroline Franka1a5e7e9a2c3dba76ecb2896a93bf66ac8d1635e
Boston Tea Party
12019-08-11T08:18:46-07:00Caroline Franka1a5e7e9a2c3dba76ecb2896a93bf66ac8d1635e84011Early print of the "Destruction of the Tea." London, 1789.
plain2019-08-11T08:18:46-07:00Caroline Franka1a5e7e9a2c3dba76ecb2896a93bf66ac8d1635e
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1media/rsz_1image9art402981copy.jpgmedia/Tea Plantation.jpgmedia/DETAIL_Liberty_Triumph.jpg2016-02-26T12:37:38-08:00Tea, Sovereignty, and an East Indies Trade for a New American Empire21By Caroline Frank, Brown Universityimage_header2423082019-08-11T08:42:52-07:00The "Boston Tea Party" has legendary status in U.S. history as one of the initial acts of a “free-born” people resisting tyrannical rulers and oppression. But why did the importation of Chinese tea provoke such a radical response—political, martial, and rhetorical—when colonists had tolerated and excused over a century of antagonistic British mercantilist legislation? Even before the ink was dry on the peace agreement with Great Britain in 1783, U.S. merchants were fitting out ships to sail to China. Here we reexamine the global context of the American Revolution and the early U.S. China trade, asking why Americans were so quick to develop their own “East Indies trade”on the heels of independence.
