And to you joining us for the first time and with the wide range of programs please turn off your cell phones during the program. Mary beth norton the author of five books and cowat it one call author several others and it has been published ten additions over 500,000 copies. As a Pulitzer Prize finalist and present of the Historical Association she is a professor america of American History at cornell and her new book it is available for purchase following the program please join me to welcome mary beth norton. [applause]. I want to show you the cover briefly because if you are a colonial historian on dash i dont know if anybody recognizes it but in the Massachusetts Historical Society the claims on the label but it contains t from the Boston Harbor the day after the party this is quite well known object in colonial america. Now i want to start with this verse from a poem that i discovered in the new york journal that coordinated with the sons of liberty in new york. That this is the kind of things historians have to make up so read the first two lines you will crown 74 the most glorious year. Yet 1774 has commonly been shorted with the coming of the revolution that those books, and the stress the events after the seven years war 1763 stopping the opposition through the king street riots known as the boston massacre in 1770 at which point the Boston Tea Party 1773 so why is this . I might answer the question is that all the books written about this. Except mine focus on radical leaders and their actions. That means a primary almost exclusive focus is on boston and massachusetts but the coming of the revolution is generally told by historians of leaders of the coming revolution these books i would argue are ideological that historian authors know how the story comes out and their purpose is to explain why they want but they dont give much attention to the centers of any kind in fact in many of these books no context is ever established for those dissenters for books like this now there is a whale is to is being persecuted or somebody is arguing you have no idea where theyre coming from or why that person says what they are saying because you have been given no background so the long year of revolution it is to understand and interpret what happened as contemporaries would have understood it to give voice not only to the radicals those men and women who were critics or radicals were moderate and conservative supporters for these eventual loyalist and in short to present american dialogue in 1774 evenhandedly and i dont forecast the outcome in fact i like the readers of the book to forget how the story comes out when they read the book. To that end with the 1774 which is the 16 month. December 1773 with a short preface for october. Mid april 1775 to show how economist all thought of themselves as loyal subjects of king george the third and as part of the empire. I just want to underscore that. People saw themselves loyal to the king and those columnist one of those groups have been persuaded and that loyalty. Persuaded and that loyalty. They begin to pride themselves and there are also those people who began to favor independence. The book, i deal with all the colonies that eventually during to the united states. I dont deal with the caribbean or the canadian but i do deal with the 13 colonies that eventually joined the united states. The book also focuses intensively on america. Both these things differentiate the book from other books about this. One because i try not to focus on massachusetts and boston to a greater extent than i have to but also because i do i never move the focus across the atlantic and talk about whats happening in parliament. Many times in a book, talks about the coming of the revolution, will switch the focus for me american colonies across the atlantic into london to have a chapter or two about the dialogue that were occurring the parliament our Parish Ministry about the polish. Instead of doing that, i introduce in each chapter, a section called advices from usually london, in one case, from house but almost always london that conveys the colonists the things they heard about what was happening in england. The section is always called advices from because if any of you are familiar with colonial newspapers from across the heading the newspapers use when they were talking about material coming in from somewhere else. I introduced the material, the information about whats happening overseas to the colonists themselves as they would have learned, although other times they would have learned, at the time it was happening. Obviously in such a short time, this evening, i cannot discuss, but i can just summarize, you have a timeline in that handout, it helps reveal these developing visions and the increasing radicalism a populace. Only one of these is known to the public and that is the first one, the Boston Tea Party. Its not just about the Boston Tea Party, its about the incident of late 1770s. The story is of the tea in boston, it was referred to at the time, it wasnt until 1826. My colleague is the one who found out thats when it began to be referred to as the Boston Tea Party. More cities than boston were involved in this is very little known. North america in 1773, and 12 new york, philadelphia. Its necessary to explain whats going on. In parliament, the spring of 1773, the members of parliament adopted the tx. The purpose was to get the company out of the financial crisis. They have the monopoly of biggest trade with the far east, china, asia and general and it was bankruptcy in 1773. Two reasons, one was mismanagement of the company into, rampant smuggling. There was smuggling everywhere. The colonies, into the home islands and so forth. The british and they were being undercut in terms of the crisis, especially by the smugglers. Not surprising, many members of parliament in the east India Company so they didnt want to go bankrupt, they wanted to preserve it financially. American settlers at the time, a term used contemporary, provisions tea drinkers. The problem they put it in perspective, they were mostly drinking smuggled tea. It was known as a dutch tea and referred to dutch tea, even though it didnt always come from the Dutch Company or the Dutch Caribbean islands. It made its way in many ways and particularly, through the isla island. This is a contemporary view. In the northeastern caribbean, let me just say, its called space i went there specifically because i had heard so much about it but it was a big smuggler in the caribbean, i had to know about it. Its a tiny island, its not on anybodys radar these days. It doesnt have any good beaches, it doesnt have enough water, i can have a golf course. It cant have our resort but what it does have is this wonderful anchorage, which is protected by these extinct volcanoes, would you see here in the bathroom. Background. A production that anchorage on the eastern side from the prevailing wind. As a result, literally, sometimes we had information about 1000 ships being anchored off this tiny island. They were trading goods, selling goods, buying goods and it was the best known smuggler haven in the caribbean. This was driving east India Companys crazy. They were losing all their goods, all their money to items being smuggled through other places in the caribbean. Especially there. It was very complex, its hard to understand. It is very hard for people at the time to understand it should not surprise people in washington to discover something written by a legislative body was complex and difficult to understand. That was certainly true. The key was too lower the tax on legal east India Company t to be able to undercut the smugglers. Smuggled tea was about half or two thirds the price of legal duty and the idea was to get the lower tax paid on the tea, then it could approach the class being charged by the smugglers. The american t objection was the symbolism of the tax. They argued that accepting it would be accepting the authority of parliament to tax them. By this time, by late 1773, pretty much they were in agreement. Parliament should not have the power to tax them. The irony is, in our current image of the Boston Tea Party is not it was higher taxes. No, it was protecting lower taxes. The problem was, lowering the tax of these companies to make people by legal tea instead of smuggled tea. In october 1773, and this is my preface, when the colonists learn that seven chips are coming to america with tea directly from east India Company, in new york city and philadelphia, they suggested three different tactics to fight the teacher. One idea was to persuade, i put that into quotation marks because of that. It was to be sent to resign information, not to except for tea. If you dont have people to accept this tea officially, and you cant have any legal tea and you dont need to worry about it. I was one of the arguments, or proposed the appearance of the arrival of the east India Company. Another tactic was to promote agreements for people not to buy or consume 30 but everybody has consumption agreement and it doesnt matter, all they need to do is just not buy it. The third argument, a very well known patriot and a doctor in philadelphia, we have to prevent the tea from landing in the first place because if it lands, it doesnt matter what happens, it doesnt matter how many people dont buy it, they would buy it and drink it. Got to keep them from that by preventing fatigue from landing. The tactics in 1773 and throughout 1774 in various locations, its not widely known and companies kept coming and asking for these. We all know about the Boston Tea Party, when the landing of the teeth was opposed by the chops in boston. Talk about that in the books but im not going to talk about it now. Im happy to answer questions about it later on. I do want to show you one slide into this is, it looks like its in the foreground, i would be happy to answer questions but the crucial points here, what happens up there in this corner, that is the closest thing we have in the station of whats happening in the Boston Tea Party. We dont know whether the artists of this people in london by the time he drew it, who have witnessed the Boston Tea Party and the parliament, but this is his drawing of what happened. Thats the closest thing we have to a contemporary view of the Boston Tea Party. Parliament, as you may remember, retaliated against the Boston Tea Party with the boston port act which closed the port until fatigue was paid for. Officially closed it on the first of june of 1774. They removed that and it did not arrive in north america until may 10, 1774 so the rest of america had little opportunity to get accustomed to the idea before the port was officially closed. But what about the other cities . Charleston to new york and philadelphia, its not well known, in fact, i didnt know it. Until i started researching this book, i didnt realize that charleston was exactly the same as boston was. I have a slide of charleston harbor, a ship arriving in charleston and this building right here, it plays a major part in the story in charleston. So what happened in charleston . One of the things i do in the first chapter of the book is back and forth, its happening in charleston. They know whats happening, they do not was happening in charleston. Its very vague terms and by the end of the process, there were a few little bits of information that dribbled along up and down the coast. But very little was known. There wasnt any communications and they were making it up as they went along. Charleston did something very different from boston. They met and agreed and charleston met twice. In large meetings in the Exchange Building they could not make up their minds what to do. They could not confront this. So what they did was instead of reaching out, they basically pondered. What ponting meant was facilitating the customs officers of South Carolina to confiscate the tea. That was because the time, one ship entered a harbor, they had to pay duty within 20 days or else the cargo would be confiscated. In charleston, they couldnt make up their mind what to do so they just let the offices confiscate after 20 days in it was clearly coercive. I found out john adams learned that in his essays and after 1775, he indicates he knows that what happened in charleston between the locals and the customs offices, the Continental Congress when he was there in 1774. So always confiscated in the basement of the Exchange Building, it was not the driest place and some of it is reported to be destroyed but what was left a couple of years later was to support the war effort. That was by colleague of mine whos working on a project is a political issue in this period. So i dont claim to have found out but he found it in the South Carolina newspaper indicating the tea was imminent. So then what happened . Thats what happened in boston in charleston. Its what happened in philadelphia and new york . Well, because paul revere, the messenger of the boston chronicles road immediately after the Boston Tea Party to philadelphia to new york and then philadelphia, by the time the teak ship went to philadelphia, coming off delaware but philadelphians knew what happened in boston. They didnt know what happened in charleston but they knew what happened in boston. So they figured out that what we do, we just dont let the teak ship entered the harbor. If it doesnt enter the harbor, then we are not confronted with this headline in the people in charleston. Basically they intercepted the teacher after it came in, whatever you do, dont let this come to philadelphia. In fact, they intercepted the ship, they persuaded the captain that he was smart not to come into the harbor and he didnt. He resupplied the ship and he turned around and headed back. The same thing happened with the ship going to new york, although it happened much later because the teak ship headed to new york was blown off course and ended up there which im sure many would like to do but this is the teak captain there and what happened in all the areas in north america when the tea chips came in from so they wrote a letter to new york saying well, i will show up but i will not head back to england. So everybody welcomes him, they know is not going to try to enter the harbor and he re supplies the ship and its a wonderful story in the new york paper about how everyone is saying what a wonderful gentleman him he is. He wished him a good voyage. One of my favorite stories about this but if you look at that timeline, there is a ship that went to boston and some of the tea ships were damaged and while most of the others were in the headquarters in Boston Harbor. They discovered that tea was eventually sold but by the british, not the americans. I discuss what happened in the book, in short, what happened was chaos. Some people wanted to buy the tea from the west. After all, it didnt pay a tax. You could buy it without admitting Parliament Like the taxpayer. Others said no, we have to stop everybody from buying the teeth because even if it had paid a tax. What ended up on the case, which i talk about in the book, there are competing town meetings that vote in different ways that are months of disagreement and allowing the teeth to be sold by the man who salvaged it. No one has ever written about this before. The british and parliament didnt but in these communities, they primarily focused their punishment on boston by adopting an act which already talked about. What that did was to lead not to defiant unity but rather lead positions from the town about what to do about how to respond to the act and thats my second snapshot. It consisted of newspapers and boston town meetings that occupied three full days. Mid to late june when people argued about what boston should do to respond to the port act. They argued a lot about what they should do. One newspaper quoted this accurately, they are the opinions of those in this town. That was exactly correct. Some people said lets pay for the tea. Other people said how do we do that . We accept from the wealthy people . They already volunteered to make contributions to pay for the teeth. So they collected them all in massachusetts and from others and theres a lot of disagreement of the people about how we are going to pay for the tea. Samuel adams, the head of the committee of correspondence and you might not realize it, messenger but he appeared in 1774, samuel adams proposed a different response. He said a boycott of all british codes, not just tea. He spoke out with massachusetts and spread to other colonies. This was economic, adopt a strategy by dish products. This comes to the emma consent of how important they were to furnish markets to overseas merchants. They really werent as important as i thought but they boycotted all British Goods and also anything from brian, they could forge the markets to then have a parliament to return, not the best one but the other ones. They committed when covertly non consumption agreement thats trying to get people out of the country side to sign them up, if nobody qualify it, then nobody will buy it once its in america, they will not important. They did this without consulting the boston town meeting first. It caused another controversy, but they argued for centuries, adams and his committee to ask about authorizations in the town. So these are the two issues paying for the teeth, we are going to pay for the tea, how to pay for the tea and what they did without authorization. These are the authors that led to this town meeting in middle and late june of 1774. Then the town voted to support the committee with a substantial minority over people there, about 25 walked out of the meeting and later published their objections to the majority decision in the newspapers. They argued that equity required that the company be compensated and it would also create boston of the boston port act. They are very focal points. Its a little known fact that americans continue to argue about wh