James R. Fichter is associate professor of European and American studies at the University of Hong Kong. He is currently finishing a book manuscript on tea in the American Revolution provisionally titled "Tea's Party: The Revolutionary Politics of a Consumer Good, 1773-1776." He is the author of So Great a Profit: How the East Indies Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism.
The Boston Tea Party famously saw the destruction of the almost 300 chests worth of tea, tossed into the harbor by “Indians” on December 16, 1773. Initial reports described “the total destruction of the Teas aboard the Ships Dartmouth, William, & Eleanor and the Beaver”—the four ships bringing the East India Company’s tea to Boston in […]
According to the Virginia Gazette between 400 and 500 merchants gathered in Williamsburg in early November 1774 and “voluntarily and generally signed” the Continental Association.[1] The Association provided for a boycott of Britain, with provisions not to import from, export to or consume products of the mother country. On November 9, 1774, the merchants presented their […]
