The Charleston tea parties

The First “tea party” in American history happened in Charleston — not Boston. The city of “Charles Town,” as it was known back then, opposed Britian’s new tea Act. The Tea Act made it illegal for the colonies to buy non-British tea and forced them to pay a tea tax of 3 pence per pound (equivalent to $18 per pound today). The Tea Act was designed to prop up the East India Tea Company, who was struggling with eighteen million pounds of unsold tea and was on the brink of bankruptcy.

When an East India Tea Company ship sailed into Charleston harbor on December 1, 1773, carrying 257 chests of tea, the people of Charleston refused to let it bring the tea ashore, and it sat in the harbor for two days while they decided what to do about it. On December 3, they organized a meeting but, because Charleston’s merchants stood to lose a lot of money, (and because South Carolinians enjoyed their cup of tea), it took three weeks to convince them to boycott the tea. The tea was finally unloaded and stored in the Old Exchange Building.

It was just not as exciting as the event that took place a few weeks later, on that cold moonlit night when Sam Adams and John Hancock, along with the Sons of Liberty, boarded three British ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea, more than 40 tons, into Boston Harbor. Each chest weighed approximately 100 lbs. That is a lot of tea.

While the first South Carolina tea party may have lacked drama, the second tea party emphasized the tense tea situation at the time. It took place in July, 1774, when Capt. Richard Maitland sailed into Charleston Harbor with three chests of tea. When questioned, Maitland said he had no knowledge the tea was on board, that he had set sail quickly and did not have time check every crate below deck. However, Maitland realized he was caught and eventually volunteered to throw the tea into the harbor at his own cost.

Word soon spread that Maitland failed to destroy the tea and that night, a mob of outraged men, carrying tar and feathers, boarded the ship. Maitland spotted the angry mob and quickly jumped ship. He hid out on the Britannia, another British ship moored nearby. The mob found the chests of tea — and carried them to the Old Exchange Building.

The third South Carolina tea party took place in Nov., 1774, when the Britannia (the same ship that had rescued Maitland) sailed into Charleston Harbor with seven chests of tea. The Captain of the Britannia, Samuel Ball, said he was not aware of any tea on his ship and his first mate must have slipped it on board. (He was quick to throw the First Mate under the bus, or maybe I should say “under the ship”). After several contradictory statements by the captain, the blame eventually fell on three Charleston importers. When the three merchants were exposed, they carried the chests down to Charleston Harbor and dumped the tea in the water, in full view of the General Committee and the townspeople, who cheered.

The revolutionary attitude that had been brewing in all the colonies, burst to the surface as the tea sank in the harbor. It was the exorbitant tax on tea that pushed the colonists to their limit — and thus began the Revolutionary War.

South Carolinians have always loved tea, preferably iced and sweetened with sugar.