To many, there’s nothing quite as comforting as a good, hot cup of coffee on a winter morning. But did you ever stop to wonder why Americans, as a rule, prefer coffee over other hot beverages such as tea?
Yes, taste has a bit to do with it. But the real reason can be found in two words: High taxes.
In mid-December of 1773, Britain had decided it had had enough of the American colonies’ feistiness. It had already repealed the Townsend Act that imposed taxes on a number of goods shipped to the colonies. Why was there still a surge of discontent among the sons of Britain, who lived in America? A three-penny tax on tea. This tax was a thumb-in-the-eye of the colonists. Indeed, most decided to do without tea, or buy it from Holland.
Today’s lawmakers should take note. Higher taxes give people reason to find substitutes, other providers or to do without.
Britain had to keep its East India Company from going bankrupt, so it sent seven ships full of tea to the colonies in late fall of 1773.
The ships that landed at New York City, Philadelphia and Charleston, S.C. were all met with official resistance. East India Company agents were driven off, votes to disallow the tea were taken, and in Charleston, the tea was left to rot in a warehouse. But it was the three ships that went to Boston that sparked the American Revolution.
The company’s agents were guarded by the ship’s marines. The Massachusetts colony’s British governor refused to allow the ships to leave port without collecting the tax. A meeting set with the governor for the purpose of making official requests broke up after it was discovered the governor had left for a summer home some six miles away. So, about 50 men, dressed as Mohawk Indians, stormed the boats, routed the agents and threw all the tea—some 340 crates—overboard.
In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed a series of laws, known as the Intolerable Acts, to punish the colonies.
The colonists convened the first Continental Congress nine months later and, before it had ended, the American Revolution had begun.
So, enjoy that cup of coffee. It’s a symbol of America’s fight for freedom.