0:00

You're listening to an

0:02

airwave media podcast. Ben Franklin's

0:04

World is a production

0:07

of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation

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Studios. Hello and welcome

0:12

to Ben Franklin's World

0:14

revisited. A series of

0:16

classic episodes that bring

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fresh perspective to our

0:21

latest episodes and had

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deeper connections to our

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understanding early American history.

0:27

And I'm your host,

0:29

Liz Kovart. Over

0:31

our last two

0:33

conversations, we've explored

0:35

the T-crisis of 1773

0:37

and the 7th T-ship. We've

0:40

also explored the

0:43

non-importation, non-exportation

0:45

movement of 1773

0:47

through 1775. Now to close out

0:50

our mini-series on T

0:52

in early America, we're

0:54

going to revisit episode

0:57

1. We'll revisit how early Americans went

0:59

from attending tea parties to holding the

1:01

Boston Tea Party. We'll also explore more

1:03

in-depth information about how tea became a

1:05

central part of many early American

1:07

lives. Now this episode features three scholars.

1:09

Jane Merritt, who is now a professor

1:12

of merit of history at Old Dominion

1:14

University, Jennifer L. Anderson, an associate

1:16

professor of history at Stony Brook

1:18

University, and David S. Shields, the

1:20

Carolina Distinguished Professor of English Language

1:22

and Literature at the University of

1:25

South Carolina. So feel

1:27

free to brew

1:30

yourself a pot

1:33

of tea and

1:35

take a sip

1:38

on it while

1:40

you listen, because

1:43

this will be

1:46

a fun journey

1:49

back through

1:51

the politics

1:54

of tea. Would you tell us

1:56

about the founding of the English East India

1:58

Company and how it developed? trade in tea?

2:01

Think about the East India Company

2:03

as kind of starting out as

2:05

a loose confederation of merchants who

2:07

were given sanction right by Elizabeth

2:10

I in 1600 to go to

2:12

what was broadly called the East-Indies

2:15

Indonesia-China-Japan and to trade goods there.

2:17

granted a kind of monopoly, but

2:19

even within that group of traders

2:22

there was a lot of disagreement

2:24

and over the 17th century they

2:26

split into factions and it wasn't

2:29

really until the 18th century in

2:31

1709 when the company that we

2:33

know of as the East India

2:36

Company united and was granted a

2:38

charter and monopoly powers over trade

2:40

in the East Indies. It really

2:43

comes about over the course of

2:45

the 17th century, but emerges as

2:47

this corporation or company in 1709.

2:50

It seems like the English East

2:52

India Company could have used its

2:55

charter and monopoly to trade for

2:57

just about anything in the East

2:59

Indies, and yet one of its

3:02

biggest commodities was tea. So how

3:04

did the company become involved with

3:06

the tea trade? Well, tea, you

3:09

know, in China was something that

3:11

was light and easy to transport.

3:13

It was something that seemed exotic

3:16

to Europeans. And I think initially

3:18

it was one of the few

3:20

things that they could trade European

3:23

manufacturers for. Silk was certainly another

3:25

item. Gold and silver were also

3:27

key commodities. But he really emerges

3:30

initially as an item of trade.

3:32

You know, the Chinese really restricted

3:34

access by Europeans to Canton, near

3:37

where Hong Kong is today. So

3:39

the English as well as the

3:42

Dutch, the French, etc. all had

3:44

this very narrow window and opportunity

3:46

to trade with the Chinese and

3:49

T becomes this commodity, not just

3:51

something that they could purchase and

3:53

sell to Europeans, but it becomes

3:56

a kind of piece that the

3:58

European powers competed over. Right. Global

4:00

trade at that point, you know,

4:03

by the 17th and 18th century,

4:05

was as much about political competition

4:07

between nations as it was about

4:10

bringing consumer items back to England.

4:12

Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands.

4:14

All the European powers traded in

4:17

the East Indies. Was it the

4:19

imperial competition you mentioned between these

4:21

empires? Also what caused the English

4:24

East India company to extend its

4:26

trade in East Indies goods to

4:29

North America? Yeah, kind of in

4:31

a roundabout way. You know, in

4:33

the 1720s and 30s, when the

4:36

East India Company is trying to

4:38

make inroads into the Chinese markets,

4:40

they are competing with the Dutch,

4:43

with the French, the Danish, you

4:45

know, the Swedish, each of them

4:47

have these merchant corporations at work

4:50

in Canton in China. And the

4:52

thing to do was to corner

4:54

the market in tea in particular

4:57

as a way of getting rid

4:59

of this competition. We don't want

5:01

the Dutch to get a hold

5:04

of this green tea, this bohea,

5:06

which is a black tea. We'll

5:08

corner the market as much as

5:11

we can and we'll oust them

5:13

from that commercial trade. But you

5:16

know, by the 1720, 1730s, the

5:18

East India Company finds that it

5:20

has. all this supply of tea

5:23

on hand, and it hadn't really

5:25

become a commodity that was widely

5:27

bought, right? So they have warehouses

5:30

full of tea by the 1730s

5:32

without necessarily markets to purchase it

5:34

all. Therefore, the East India Company,

5:37

through its merchants in London, turned

5:39

to North America, especially as a

5:41

place they hope to create a

5:44

market, right? We hope to create

5:46

consumers for this good. So how

5:48

did the company go about creating

5:51

a market or consumers in North

5:53

America for all their excess tea?

5:56

Well, you get a lot of

5:58

American merchants on board buying it

6:00

through their wholesalers in London. At

6:03

this point, you know... East India

6:05

companies not able to sell tea

6:07

or goods directly to North America.

6:10

They bring it back to London,

6:12

they put up sale of tea

6:14

and silks at auction every year,

6:17

and then British merchants who purchase

6:19

this are the ones who then

6:21

retail and sell either wholesale or

6:24

in lots to American merchants. So

6:26

to the help of these merchant

6:28

millmen in England, they help Americans

6:31

advertise. Right? You start to see

6:33

the emergence of newspaper advertisements, pamphlets,

6:35

and flyers that tout East India

6:38

goods, you know, the nicest silks,

6:40

the best peas, the highest quality

6:43

peas are here for you. This

6:45

new shipment has just arrived. So

6:47

advertising is part of it. And

6:50

I think that American merchants themselves

6:52

start to kind of use this

6:54

product, right, as well to kind

6:57

of show people how to drink

6:59

tea. you know this wasn't always

7:01

apparent to people in the 17

7:04

teens and 17 20s of how

7:06

to brew and how to consume

7:08

tea. So through kind of imitation

7:11

as well as advertising by the

7:13

1740s really you see the sale

7:15

of tea kind of taking off

7:18

in North America. When the English

7:20

East India Company helped to create

7:22

this taste for team British North

7:25

America, did they have a specific

7:27

target demographic or customer base that

7:30

they wanted to sell to? Or

7:32

did they really hope that the

7:34

market for tea would be all

7:37

British North Americans? I think that

7:39

many people thought as an elite

7:41

kind of beverage initially, and certainly

7:44

anyone who could afford to buy

7:46

tea in the, say, the 17

7:48

teens in 1720s when it was

7:51

sometimes as much as a sterling

7:53

pound per pound, you know, it

7:55

was fairly expensive. It was seen

7:58

as the kind of elite tea,

8:00

but... you know as he became

8:02

more readily available the supply becomes

8:05

more and it becomes cheaper and

8:07

it did by the middle of

8:10

the 18th century it became accessible

8:12

to a wide variety of people.

8:14

I mean, by mid-century you could

8:17

purchase a pound of tea for

8:19

about seven to ten shillings. Now

8:21

mind you, a laborer's wages at

8:24

this time are only about two

8:26

shillings a day. So if a

8:28

male laborer can earn two shillings

8:31

a day, and let's say ten

8:33

shillings a week, I mean, that's

8:35

as much as a pound of

8:38

tea would retail for. So there's

8:40

a real... conundrum because I noticed

8:42

at least in my research that

8:45

these laborers, you know, guys who

8:47

worked on ships, you know, sailors

8:49

as well as artisans, you know,

8:52

I ran into wig makers and

8:54

sawiers, people who saw wood and

8:57

sold that, dressmakers, hat makers, tailors,

8:59

etc. I mean all levels of

9:01

society seemed to purchase tea at

9:04

least through these merchant ledgers that

9:06

I looked at. It was a

9:08

little bit misleading though, because my

9:11

initial reaction was, well, wow, I

9:13

mean, by the 1740s became so

9:15

popular that, you know, even sailors

9:18

are wanting to purchase at least

9:20

small amounts, you know, a quarter

9:22

of a pound or a half

9:25

a pound. But the longer I

9:27

looked at it, I realized you're

9:29

looking at an economy that is

9:32

really what is often called a

9:34

book economy. Everything you purchased, every

9:36

way that you were paid for

9:39

your services. or goods was often

9:41

done on credit through these ledger

9:44

accounts or book credit. And so

9:46

I kind of stepped back and

9:48

I thought, well, maybe it's not

9:51

the demand of this sailor for

9:53

tea that's driving these what are

9:55

often called the lower sorts to

9:58

purchase tea. And fact, here are

10:00

merchants that in the 1730s and

10:02

even into the 1740s have been

10:05

urged to purchase this tea through

10:07

their London contacts. And that in

10:09

fact to pay for services like

10:12

wig making or tailors or dressmakers

10:14

that they are... paying these people

10:16

in tea because they have it

10:19

on hand and it's a ready

10:21

available commodity. So it's kind of

10:23

a chicken and egg question, you

10:26

know, did the demand for tea

10:28

come first or did sort of

10:31

the distribution, right, and supply of

10:33

tea come first? And I'm thinking

10:35

that until the 1740s, it's really

10:38

this supply, right, this oversupply by

10:40

the East India company that trickles

10:42

down to American merchants. who are

10:45

then urged through advertising to take

10:47

this commodity off their hands because

10:49

they have a lot of excess

10:52

of it, and through the payment

10:54

of the other people who work

10:56

for them or who purchase things

10:59

from them, do service for them

11:01

by paying them with tea and

11:03

little things like sugar or other

11:06

luxury items, that they are actually

11:08

habituating these workers to it as

11:11

a commodity. We've been talking about

11:13

how tea became popular among British

11:15

North Americans. And in Jane's book,

11:18

The Trouble with Tea, Jane describes

11:20

how tea importation informed part of

11:22

the so-called consumer revolution. Jane, would

11:25

you tell us about the British

11:27

American consumer revolution and specifically about

11:29

the role tea played in that

11:32

revolution? It's certainly something that we

11:34

debate about as cultural historians, as

11:36

economic historians. But the idea is

11:39

that, you know, by the 17th

11:41

century, there is this increased global

11:43

trade networks. to the East Indies

11:46

to places like Muscovia and Eastern

11:48

Europe into the Mediterranean and a

11:50

lot of new exotic goods are

11:53

being brought back. You know, things

11:55

that people didn't have every day.

11:58

And sugar and chocolate and tea,

12:00

coffee, silks and certainly spices from

12:02

Indonesia, increased global trade certainly meant

12:05

that these goods are now more

12:07

readily available. So you know the

12:09

circulation of goods, the increased number

12:12

and availability of these goods. really

12:14

are revolutionary in the sense that

12:16

they're there. But I think that

12:19

the real revolution comes when the

12:21

meaning of those goods changes, right?

12:23

Things that were once seen as

12:26

luxuries, as items for elite consumption

12:28

by the middle of the 18th

12:30

century are cheaper and are even

12:33

becoming necessities. Right. So the meaning

12:35

of these goods is changing. Now

12:37

with he, for instance, the changing

12:40

meaning meaning. and availability of it

12:42

gets tied up in these debates

12:45

over the morality of luxury consumption?

12:47

Was he a drug? Many people

12:49

called it an opiate, a drug

12:52

of the masses, right? Or was

12:54

it simply a pleasure? You know,

12:56

was it addictive? It gave them

12:59

more energy to be more productive.

13:01

So in the early 18th century

13:03

in particular, these debates over the

13:06

morality and meaning of tea were

13:08

prevalent. And I have to say

13:10

that this morality debate is often

13:13

tied to women and their relationship

13:15

to tea. Often women were targeted

13:17

and told that they were idle

13:20

if they sat around a tea

13:22

table and drank tea. They were

13:24

spreading gossip, they were spreading scandal.

13:27

they were seen as weak and

13:29

it was often described as an

13:32

addictive substance when it was associated

13:34

with women in their consumption. So

13:36

it was really, you know, kind

13:39

of questionable whether this luxury should

13:41

and could become sort of prolific

13:43

or ubiquitous in the consumer world.

13:46

You see that debate, by the

13:48

way, over the morality of luxuries

13:50

kind of disappeared by the 1760s

13:53

and 1770s. Because by then, T

13:55

is really becoming everyday thing and

13:57

something that is done by everyone

14:00

and not seeing. in the same

14:02

sense it is in the 17-20s

14:04

and 30s. Did the morality debate

14:07

around tea ever discuss smuggling? Because

14:09

smuggling proved to be so common

14:12

in the 18th century that some

14:14

historians have wondered whether or not

14:16

it was just another description for

14:19

trade in the Atlantic world. So

14:21

Jane, would you tell us about

14:23

smuggling and specifically about tea smuggling?

14:26

Yeah, you can't really, either for

14:28

Great Britain itself and Ireland or

14:30

for North America, really look at

14:33

tea separate from smuggling. And I

14:35

was really challenged, I think, to

14:37

look at both legal sale of

14:40

tea, which is well recorded, right

14:42

through customs records, as well as

14:44

the East India Company has its

14:47

own set of records of auctioning

14:49

and sale of tea. But because

14:51

North America during certain periods became

14:54

haven for smuggling, especially between the

14:56

Dutch and the French and American

14:59

merchants, you have to take that

15:01

path in order to understand the

15:03

availability at least, and if not

15:06

consumption. But what I found was

15:08

that it's really both. American merchants

15:10

kind of used both avenues, both.

15:13

legal purchase and sale of tea

15:15

as through the East India Company,

15:17

as well as smuggling. And it

15:20

really depended on the place. You

15:22

know, for instance, New England tended

15:24

to be kind of as people

15:27

complained about a hotbed of smuggling.

15:29

The time, during wartime, for instance,

15:31

when cash was scarce and when

15:34

commodities and trade routes were often

15:36

blocked, you know, by war. then

15:38

Americans often turn to illegal trade

15:41

in order to supply their consumers

15:43

with goods that they still demanded.

15:46

Again, the problems with figuring out

15:48

the size of that smuggling trade

15:50

is very difficult. You know, people

15:53

can estimate, certainly someone like Thomas

15:55

Hutchinson complained to Great Britain at

15:57

least, that five out of every

16:00

six pounds of tea that they

16:02

drink has been smuggled in. So

16:04

trying to find a balance of what

16:07

that smuggling tells us and what it

16:09

means was really difficult. Would you tell

16:11

us more about your comparison of

16:13

legally imported and sold tea versus

16:16

smuggled and illegally sold tea? How

16:18

did people smuggle tea into

16:20

British North America? And what

16:22

was the difference in sales

16:24

price between legally imported and

16:26

smuggled tea? Think about this as

16:28

the incentive. Okay, if you think

16:30

about the tax structure that is

16:33

put on legally imported tea and

16:35

all this tea by the way

16:37

through Great Britain is East India

16:39

Company tea because they have a

16:41

monopoly on purchasing and selling from

16:43

China and none of this tea

16:46

has grown in India yet. That

16:48

comes in the 19th century, but

16:50

it is sold through London through

16:52

the East India company that has

16:54

a monopoly. But here's the kind

16:56

of layers, right, of taxes that

16:58

are put on this T. I

17:01

mean, first of all, the East

17:03

India company has to pay an

17:05

import duty when it comes to

17:07

auction, and that's just about 12%

17:09

of the value, right, of each

17:11

of these lots that they put

17:13

on auction. But then on top

17:15

of that, there are excise duties

17:18

paid by the merchants and retailers

17:20

who purchase this T. And this

17:22

might include a one to four

17:24

showing per pound. inland duty tax.

17:26

It's kind of a distribution tax

17:28

in some ways. And then what's

17:31

often called ad valoram or a

17:33

value added tax of 25% on

17:35

the value, not the weight of

17:37

the T. So you're paying a

17:39

tax on both the weight of

17:41

the T as well as the

17:43

value of that T. And by

17:45

the time gets to retail, you

17:48

the consumer are probably paying at

17:50

least half of that retail cost

17:52

is taxes and a half. perhaps

17:54

might be what it was initially

17:56

sold at auction. So it was

17:58

by mid 18th century. You know,

18:00

just your basic black tea was

18:02

sold at auction by the East

18:04

India Company for about three shillings

18:07

a pound. That's before all these

18:09

other excise taxes are added to

18:11

it. Dutch tea at that time could

18:13

be purchased for just under two

18:15

shillings a pound. And then you

18:17

didn't have to worry about, you

18:20

know, adding the taxes to the

18:22

cost for American. So you're an

18:24

American merchant, right? And you can

18:26

go down to St Eustasis, which

18:28

is a West Indies colony. And

18:30

you can purchase a barrel of

18:33

300 pounds of tea at one

18:35

showing 11 pence versus the lot

18:37

of tea that you purchase through

18:39

Merchant Middleman in London, which, you

18:41

know, after the tax is added

18:44

might be six or seven shilling

18:46

to pound. And, you know, you

18:48

do the math. It's cost

18:50

effectiveness, I think, for Americans

18:53

is clear. You know, the British

18:55

are constantly, you know, throughout

18:57

the 1740s, especially, and 50s,

18:59

60s, trying to create tax

19:02

reform. They in fact want

19:04

to lower the price of

19:06

tea, not just for consumers,

19:09

but to keep the East

19:11

India Company happy. So, you

19:13

know, initial reforms in the

19:16

1740s kind of say, okay,

19:18

we'll give you rebates or

19:20

drawbacks. for those excise taxes,

19:23

that inland duty tax, if

19:25

you re-export this T to North

19:27

America, we won't make you pay

19:29

that, but we'll reduce the tax to,

19:31

you know, one or four shillings a

19:34

pound. Even those don't cut into,

19:36

you know, the growing amount of

19:38

smuggling that is going on in

19:40

North America. Now, you know, to smuggle

19:43

is dangerous, right? Because there

19:45

are restrictions, and by the

19:47

1760s, especially after the Seven

19:49

Years' War, there's a growing

19:51

presence right of the British

19:53

Navy and customs officials and

19:55

people who can look at

19:57

your ship manifesto and certificate.

19:59

and say, well, you know,

20:01

you do or do not

20:03

have the right to ship this,

20:06

do you seem to have

20:08

on board? So it is dangerous,

20:10

and you end up with growing

20:13

number of smuggling routes, kind

20:15

of in the coves along the

20:17

coast between major cities, you

20:19

know, between New York and Philadelphia.

20:21

There were several places on Long

20:24

Island or along what's today, the

20:26

Connecticut coast, that were perfect places

20:29

to land. You also have,

20:31

not surprisingly, Americans who worked in

20:33

the customs office, who found

20:35

that they could make a little

20:37

extra money by taking a bribe

20:40

here and there and allowing some

20:42

of this illegal trade to come

20:45

through. So the British are

20:47

hard-pressed both to find that balance

20:49

of tax reform to lower

20:51

the price, but they're also trying

20:54

to enforce, you know, their navigation

20:56

acts and revenue stream, these tax

20:58

duties that need to be paid,

21:01

and they're kind of at

21:03

a loss. Yeah, the British Tax

21:05

Reform Measures. We should take

21:07

a look at how these worked.

21:10

Jane, would you tell us about

21:12

one of these reform measures, the

21:14

T Act of 1773? How did

21:17

this act impact the duties

21:19

that the British government actually charged

21:21

on legally imported T? The

21:23

T-tax was part of two things.

21:26

I mean, one of it

21:28

was a reform on taxes and

21:30

trying to increase the sale of

21:32

T to North America. But

21:34

a bigger part of it, and

21:37

I think what Parliament was

21:39

really focusing on was to help

21:41

the East India Company remain afloat.

21:44

By the 1760s, they had in

21:46

fact become a company too big

21:48

to fail. I mean, I

21:50

use that term because it's kind

21:53

of easy to imagine what

21:55

that means today, right? Too big

21:57

to fail in that the East

22:00

India Company was inextricably interdependent. with

22:02

Great Britain and its government. They

22:04

had taken out a lot

22:06

of loans from the Bank of

22:09

England, which was essentially the

22:11

financial arm of the British government.

22:13

agreement with the British government that

22:16

they would take back 400,000 sterling

22:18

pounds per year to help both

22:20

fund this loan, but also

22:22

give ready cash to operations for

22:25

Great Britain. As they ensconced

22:27

themselves in India, in Bengal, for

22:29

instance. They are also kind of

22:32

the governing face, you know, the

22:34

imperial face of Great Britain there.

22:36

By the 1760s, they had

22:39

really spent a lot of money

22:41

raising an army, conquering the

22:43

province really of Bengal, becomes a

22:45

province of the East India

22:47

Company. And they are on the

22:50

verge of bankruptcy because of the

22:52

cost of this dominance in

22:54

India. So Britain in 1773 wants

22:57

to somehow make sure that

22:59

they maintain their financial stability. They

23:01

pass a series of acts that

23:03

give relief to them, they make

23:06

a loan of 1.4 million pounds

23:08

in exchange for oversight by

23:10

the government, they send a governor

23:13

to Bengal, Warren Hastings gets

23:15

sent for diplomatic functions and governing

23:17

both the actions of the company

23:19

as well as the trading and

23:22

commercial aspects of India. But the

23:24

T-act then is also trying

23:26

to find a way to get

23:29

more money into the coffers,

23:31

not just of England, but of

23:33

East India Company. They cut out

23:35

the middleman, and the T-act allows

23:38

the East India Company the right

23:40

to sell directly to American

23:42

merchants rather than through this wholesale

23:45

auctioning that they had been

23:47

doing in England. They withdrew or

23:49

rebated, often called a drawback of

23:51

all those tax duties on the

23:54

T for re-exportation to North America.

23:56

They didn't have to pay

23:58

the 25% value-added tax. They didn't

24:01

have to pay this inland

24:03

duty tax. They kept one small

24:05

tax on T and that was

24:07

three penny per pound tax. I

24:10

mean, in the mind, I think

24:12

a parliament in making this

24:14

deal was that this is going

24:17

to make tea cheaper for

24:19

American consumers, certainly cheaper than for

24:21

British consumers. This is going

24:23

to give Americans direct access to

24:26

tea, and not just old green

24:28

tea and boia, black tea,

24:30

but we're going to provide these

24:32

new varieties. So they're going

24:34

to really purchase more tea because

24:37

they're going to see the kind

24:39

of varieties that they have not

24:42

seen in North America. I always

24:44

say my students at this

24:46

point, you know, like why the

24:48

Boston Tea Party, if tea

24:50

was going to be cheaper, you

24:53

know, why the reaction against the

24:55

sale of tea, this extension of

24:58

tea? And what's really interesting is

25:00

that I noticed that patriots

25:02

in the 1770s, and who are

25:04

specifically talking out about this

25:06

tea act of 1773 with direct

25:09

access to American markets. focus not

25:11

on the tax itself, right? Even

25:14

though that becomes sort of this

25:16

symbol, right, that the three

25:18

pennies per pound, three pence per

25:20

pound tax, they often focused

25:22

more on the East India Company

25:25

and its role as a monopoly

25:27

in their American market. You have

25:30

guys, for instance, like John Dickinson,

25:32

writing these. pamphlets saying, you

25:34

know, it's not the tax. It's

25:36

about the East India Company

25:38

monopoly. Their conduct in Asia has

25:41

been horrific. They have abused

25:43

local people there. They really recognize

25:45

that this expansion of monopoly in

25:48

a global economy had an

25:50

impact and effects even in local

25:52

and American markets. Their fear

25:54

was that that monopoly would in

25:56

fact come to America and that

25:59

it was a slippery slope. Right

26:01

here they have monopoly on selling

26:04

tea to us. Soon the

26:06

East India Company will set up

26:08

warehouses and they will have

26:10

sole right to sell us every

26:13

good that comes from the world,

26:15

right? We will have no control

26:17

over our own market. Given all

26:20

the historical sources that you've

26:22

looked at and given the significance

26:24

of smuggling in British North

26:26

America, do you think the British

26:29

government's change in the tax rate

26:31

on T with the T Act

26:33

of 1773, was a logical response

26:36

to its need to raise

26:38

more revenue from the colonies? in

26:40

their mind it was. Again,

26:42

it was sort of this balancing

26:45

act that they'd been trying to

26:47

combat smuggling. They had been trying

26:49

to maintain the revenue stream that

26:52

tax on T brought. They

26:54

were trying not to alienate British

26:56

merchants. They're trying to entice

26:58

new consumers. And so in their

27:01

minds to lower the tax

27:03

on T, make it more directly

27:05

available, was... the logical step, right?

27:07

If we can compete with

27:09

Dutch tea, if we can compete

27:12

with the prices that American

27:14

merchants found in the French West

27:16

Indies, we can bring them back

27:19

as consumers. The hope to compete

27:21

there, I think what they were

27:23

not ready for was just

27:25

the symbolism that he had kind

27:28

of taken on, right, during

27:30

the boycotts and the non-importation protests

27:32

of the 1760s of the 1760s

27:35

of the 1760s. He really kind

27:37

of emerged even before 1773, but

27:39

it emerged as this symbol

27:41

of British imperialism and oppression and

27:44

it was really hard to

27:46

kind of unlink those ideas. In

27:48

your book The Trouble with Tea,

27:51

you discussed the challenges that merchants,

27:53

small traders, and ordinary men and

27:55

women faced when trying to

27:58

buy and sell tea. And I

28:00

wonder if you would tell

28:02

us about some of those challenges

28:04

during the years before the revolution,

28:07

during the revolution, and even after

28:09

the revolution. I mean, how did

28:12

people's access to T change

28:14

over the course of the 18th

28:16

century? You know, I talk

28:18

about early in the 18th century,

28:20

you know, the 17th century.

28:22

1930s and 40s as a period

28:25

of time when the demand for

28:27

tea isn't really great, but

28:29

that slowly again through this supply

28:32

of tea through advertising and

28:34

certainly through kind of the labor

28:36

and payment of individuals with tea

28:38

habituates Americans to drinking it. And

28:41

then, you know, by the 1740s

28:43

and 50s, this becomes not

28:45

just a luxury, but many people

28:48

see it as a kind

28:50

of daily necessity, something that's a

28:52

pleasure. And so before the war,

28:54

you know, as I guess T

28:57

is becoming politicized in the 1760s

28:59

in the post-7 wars period,

29:01

the demand for T is actually

29:04

pretty steady. Boycotts were used

29:06

after the stamp act was passed

29:08

in 1765, boycotts of British goods

29:10

was certainly used after 1767 when

29:13

the Townsend's an town's an ex.

29:15

were passed and tea was

29:17

one of these specific commodities labeled

29:20

as an enumerated or taxed

29:22

good, but I found that often

29:24

it didn't really stymie the ability

29:26

or the demand for it. If

29:29

someone didn't want to buy legal,

29:31

you know, tea, they would

29:33

find a way to purchase smuggled

29:36

tea, right? But it really

29:38

isn't until after 1774, right. The

29:40

Boston Tea Party, the destruction of

29:43

tea. And then the punishment of

29:45

Boston through the coercive acts changes,

29:47

I think, the political debate

29:49

over tea, but only for a

29:52

couple years, I have to

29:54

say. The Continental Congress is convened

29:56

by the end of 1774,

29:58

and this is before the revolution,

30:01

right, and the fighting really begins.

30:03

But the Continental Congress wants

30:05

to make British trade, and they

30:07

name tea in particular. as

30:09

an item that we need to

30:12

banish that we need to cut

30:14

off trade. Great Britain through this

30:17

continental-wide boycott in order to make

30:19

a point about parliamentary attempts

30:21

to raise revenue. And so you

30:23

do see a couple years,

30:25

74, 75, 76 in particular, he

30:28

has been politicized and by the

30:30

way even smuggled tea has a

30:33

bad reputation during this period, certainly

30:35

associated with British policy and

30:37

that East India company monopoly. And

30:39

once the fighting begins, 75,

30:41

76, just the logistics of getting

30:44

T, of course, is timing. Still,

30:46

what I find interesting is during

30:49

the war itself, by 1776, 77,

30:51

there is this underline, lying,

30:53

consumer demand for T. And indeed,

30:55

when soldiers and officers in

30:57

the continental army, are confiscating goods

31:00

on their list of provisions that

31:02

they really want from individual storekeepers

31:05

that they're going into debate over

31:07

provisions with is tea, right?

31:09

And we also see consumers starting

31:11

to demand accountability of merchants

31:13

during wartime. Because what happens during

31:16

wartime, of course, as merchants

31:18

will be careful about keeping back.

31:20

goods that they feel they can

31:23

get a little more money

31:25

for if they hoard it or

31:27

kind of hold it. And

31:29

women begin to protest and complain

31:32

directly to Congress or to their

31:34

state provincial councils about the availability

31:36

of food, but in particular, for

31:39

some reason, tea becomes this

31:41

commodity that women consumers in particular

31:43

are demanding access to. They

31:45

accuse merchants of hoarding. T and

31:48

charging too much for it and

31:50

indeed food riots throughout the North

31:52

and New York and Massachusetts we

31:55

see by the late 1770s

31:57

target this assessment. question, right? Merchants

31:59

are trying to make money

32:01

off of our scarcity. They should

32:04

provide tea at a fair price.

32:06

We see women in fact breaking

32:08

into some shops and confiscating these

32:11

hoarded goods for themselves and

32:13

bringing them up for sale at

32:15

a fair price. It's really

32:17

intriguing the ways that he is

32:20

kind of politicized in a different

32:22

way during the American Revolution. as

32:24

something that is now a necessity

32:27

part of life and is

32:29

being kept out of our hands

32:31

by these greedy merchants. He

32:33

also asked about after the

32:35

war and I was also

32:37

struck with how quickly demand

32:39

and accessibility of tea kind

32:41

of comes back in the

32:44

aftermath of the war. You know, part

32:46

of this is state governments,

32:48

you know, states. saw the

32:50

demand for a commodity like

32:52

tea and they embraced tea

32:54

as a stream of revenue

32:56

for themselves. And this is

32:58

prior to the Constitution. And

33:00

so each state is trying

33:02

to create its own budget

33:04

and figure out where can

33:06

we kind of plug into

33:08

commerce, right, to either tax

33:10

imports or excise taxes on

33:12

goods. And tea again was

33:14

specifically named as a commodity that

33:17

we could tax. as a component

33:19

of our state tax and to

33:21

raise revenue with it. Even though

33:23

Congress, right under the federal

33:26

constitution when it meets, decides

33:28

some of its first policies

33:30

are about commerce, commercial policies

33:32

about import taxes, excise taxes,

33:34

and they name almost at

33:36

the top of the list

33:39

to commodities like tea, central

33:41

to new American-based trade with

33:43

Asia. and indeed they need

33:45

to be taxed, but at

33:47

a reasonable cost and in

33:49

order to kind of encourage

33:51

American trade versus foreign

33:54

merchant trade. So there's

33:56

a protectionist taxes put in

33:58

place as well. encourage trade

34:00

with Asia and tea being

34:03

central to that. In the 17th

34:05

and 18th centuries, global

34:07

trade was as much

34:09

about political competition between

34:12

European empires as it was

34:14

about bringing consumer items back

34:16

to Europe and to the

34:19

Americas. In fact, it was

34:21

imperial competition that helped tea

34:23

become a thing in British

34:26

North America. During the 1720s

34:28

and 1730s, The English East India

34:30

Company tried to make inroads into

34:32

Chinese markets by cornering the market

34:34

on tea. Now the problem with this

34:37

business tactic is that while it cleared

34:39

the market of competition from other foreign

34:41

trade companies, it also filled English

34:43

East India Company warehouses with tea when

34:45

there wasn't really a market for it. So

34:47

to dispose of their tons of tea, the

34:50

English East India Company set to work creating

34:52

a market for tea in North America. They

34:54

accomplished this feat both with time

34:56

and with the help of London

34:58

wholesalers. who sold the tea to

35:00

American merchants and then helped those

35:02

merchants advertise and create local American

35:04

markets for it. Now at first, tea

35:07

proved to be most popular with elite men

35:09

and women. Merchants and wealthy craftsmen who

35:11

could afford to pay as much as

35:13

a sterling pound per pound for tea.

35:15

But over the course of the 1720s

35:18

and 1730s, merchants assisted with

35:20

expanding the American market for

35:22

tea by using tea to pay for

35:24

local goods and services. This proved to

35:26

be an ingenious strategy. Because by

35:28

using tea as payment, merchants helped

35:30

distribute this new commodity far

35:33

and wide in British North America,

35:35

so that by the 1740s, the sale of tea

35:37

took off. Now, whether it was because of its

35:39

taste, its addictive caffeine, or just

35:41

the social benefits of participating in

35:44

the rituals of tea consumption, tea

35:46

became a very popular trade good.

35:48

So popular, that Americans increased their

35:50

importation of tea through both

35:52

legal and extra legal means,

35:54

from the 1740s onward. Now, we'll

35:57

never know how much tea early Americans

35:59

smoked. into British North

36:01

America, but contemporaries like Thomas Hutchinson

36:03

of Massachusetts estimated that five out

36:05

of every six pounds of tea

36:08

was smuggled tea. And although smuggling

36:10

was dangerous, we know that British Americans

36:12

risked the consequences of being caught in

36:15

order to keep tea in stock and

36:17

to reduce its cost. Smuggled tea

36:19

helped transform tea from a highly

36:21

taxed luxury good into an affordable

36:24

everyday commodity by the 1770s. It

36:26

was the combination of the sheer popularity

36:28

of tea and the expense of its

36:30

legal importation that inspired the British government

36:33

to pass the T Act of 1773.

36:35

Now as written, the T Act promised to

36:37

drop the price of English East India tea

36:39

in North America so that it would be

36:41

even more affordable than smuggled tea. Parliament

36:44

hoped that this act would spur Americans

36:46

to import more East India company tea

36:48

than smuggled tea, which would also help

36:50

the government collect and raise more tax

36:52

revenue. But in reality... Americans balked at

36:55

the tea act. They may have noticed

36:57

how it would drop the price

36:59

on tea, but they also noted

37:01

its additional regulatory provisions. No longer could

37:03

all merchants sell tea. Now, only properly

37:05

appointed tea consignees could sell tea.

37:08

Plus, by undercutting the price of smuggled

37:10

tea, the tea act seemed like it would actually

37:12

end healthy competition in the

37:15

marketplace. For many Americans, these

37:17

regulatory actions promised to bring

37:19

the English East India Company

37:21

monopoly to the American marketplace.

37:23

An act that Americans protested in political

37:26

tea parties just like the Boston

37:28

Tea Party on December 16, 1773.

37:30

But if the Boston Tea Party

37:32

had not taken place and people had

37:34

submitted to the T Act, would it

37:36

have created an English East

37:38

India Company monopoly in British North

37:41

America? We can't answer that question

37:43

because history didn't play out that

37:45

way. What we can do is further explore

37:47

a British American tea culture before

37:49

the revolution. Because by furthering our

37:52

understanding of tea culture, We'll be able

37:54

to better see just how much tea came

37:56

to influence local American economies, as well as

37:58

the market for other global economies. traded goods.

38:00

Now, since the politics of tea influenced

38:03

so many different aspects of the

38:05

early American economy, we should look at just

38:07

one of the goods that tea created a

38:09

market for. And as tea was a globally traded

38:11

commodity, I think we should look at

38:13

the market it created for another

38:16

globally traded commodity. How about mahogany?

38:18

Mahogany proved to be central to

38:20

tea consumption. And like tea, it couldn't be

38:22

acquired on the North American continent.

38:25

We should speak with Jennifer Anderson, who's

38:27

an expert on the early American

38:29

mahogany trade. Jennifer has an extensive

38:31

background as a museum curator and

38:33

exhibit developer. Presently, she's an

38:35

associate professor of history at Stonybrook

38:37

University, and she's also the author

38:40

of the book, Mahogany, The Costs

38:42

of Luxury in Early America. But before

38:44

we get Jennifer to take us through

38:46

the mahogany trade and its connection with

38:48

British American tea culture, we should

38:50

talk about the sponsor for our broader

38:52

exploration of the politics of tea, and that would

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your free month today. As it

40:44

turns out, if we really want

40:46

to understand the politics of tea,

40:48

we need to also

40:50

understand how tea influenced

40:53

the American market for

40:55

other globally traded commodities

40:57

like mahogany. Jennifer, your

40:59

research investigates the big history

41:01

of mahogany and the way

41:03

it became an important resource

41:05

for highly skilled carpenters who made

41:07

expensive furniture. So would you tell us

41:09

about the development of the

41:12

mahogany trade? In the 17th century,

41:14

we see the very early beginnings

41:16

of a trade in tropical hardwoods

41:18

as Europeans venture into the Caribbean

41:21

and then later into Central America

41:23

and find an abundance of new

41:25

and quite novel. similar resources which

41:27

they were having in short supply

41:29

back in Europe. But it takes

41:31

a while for that initial appreciation

41:34

to translate into a larger consumer

41:36

market simply because these beautiful trees

41:39

like mahogany and lignomite and other

41:41

things that were native to the

41:43

neotropical zones of the so-called

41:46

new world were deep in

41:48

the forest, difficult extricate and

41:50

very labor-intensive to extract. So

41:52

you really see the beginnings of a

41:54

more... concerted effort to extract that and

41:56

to develop a logging industry on the

41:59

islands of the West Indies, so

42:01

places like Jamaica and the Bahamas.

42:03

And it comes in conjunction with a

42:05

larger economic incentive to clear the

42:07

land of the trees, which was

42:09

to grow sugar, which I think

42:11

most people are probably familiar with

42:13

as with sort of the main

42:15

impetus of colonization in the West

42:17

Indies. And it was really a

42:19

byproduct of that endeavor that suddenly

42:21

they begin to realize that if

42:23

they're cutting down all these trees,

42:25

that they might have economic value

42:28

as a source of. cabinet making

42:30

wood and for other kinds of

42:32

utilitarian purposes such as shipbuilding.

42:34

And what's the connection between mahogany

42:36

and tea? How did the mahogany

42:38

tree become associated with American

42:41

tea consumption? Well, that's a kind

42:43

of slow-key convergence that these new

42:45

whether novel and exotic commodities

42:47

are being introduced to Europeans

42:50

and later to colonial Americans as

42:52

well at around the same time.

42:54

So end of the 17th century

42:56

beginning of the 18th century. And

42:58

as tea consumption is introduced, it

43:00

comes along with a whole set

43:03

of accessories, a kutermont, as well

43:05

as various kinds of rituals.

43:07

So it was something special

43:10

and regarded as having a

43:12

context within which one would do

43:14

tea drinking, which I often think

43:16

when we grab a, you know, a

43:18

listening seab and throw it in the

43:21

trash a few minutes later, we don't

43:23

regard this commodity with the

43:25

same kind of... specialness and ritual

43:27

that people did when it was

43:29

so anomaly. And so tea

43:31

was expensive and you would buy it

43:34

in small quantities and one of the

43:36

things that people needed was a place

43:38

to store it. So they would make

43:40

or have made for them these beautiful

43:42

small boxes that had a lock in

43:44

key to store the tea. And in

43:47

addition, they developed a new

43:49

form of furniture called a

43:51

tea table, which was reserved

43:53

for the serving of this

43:55

special drink with porcelain and

43:57

sugar and all in a silver

43:59

teaspoon. and it was meant to

44:01

be a social occasion that people

44:03

would gather around the key table.

44:05

And then there were other items

44:07

as well made out of mahogany

44:09

wood, such as kettle stands, but

44:11

the key table really was the

44:13

most prominent one. And it's kind of

44:16

interesting to think about that it's the

44:18

ancestor, if you will, of today's coffee

44:20

table, which people think of pretty ubiquitously,

44:22

it's something you have in front of

44:25

yourself, or you put your feet on

44:27

it, and it's convenient, but we don't

44:29

think of it in connection with coffee

44:31

per se, but that goes back to

44:33

its predecessor at the tea table, which

44:35

again, with a much more formal piece of

44:37

furniture, you never put your feet on the

44:39

tea table. It was used for the

44:41

serving of tea and then placed. back

44:44

into its spot out of the way

44:46

to be reserved for that special purpose.

44:48

American tea consumption and the social ritual

44:50

around it created a need for

44:52

accessories, like high-end furniture made from

44:54

tropical woods like mahogany, and for

44:56

complementary additives like sugar. Now, like

44:59

many of the major commodities of the era,

45:01

mahogany and sugar both depended on

45:03

the labor of enslaved people. Jennifer,

45:05

would you tell us about the mahogany

45:07

trades dependence on the labor of enslaved

45:10

people? You know, one of the

45:12

challenges, as I mentioned before,

45:14

was extracting this timber because

45:16

these trees, especially in the

45:19

first blush of mahogany harvesting,

45:21

they tended to be quite

45:23

massive trees, often virgin timber

45:25

coming out of areas that

45:28

hadn't been intensively logged before.

45:30

And so it was quite a large

45:32

undertaking. to cut the trees down and

45:35

to drag them to some kind of

45:37

a water artery where they could be

45:39

floated downstream and then loaded homes

45:41

and ships headed back to Europe.

45:44

So because this begins sort of

45:46

as an adjunct to sugar cultivation,

45:48

which also relied on enslaved labor,

45:50

it became the practice of landowners

45:53

that they would bring in initially

45:55

their own slaves and then later

45:57

there were people who specialized in

46:00

logging who would bring in

46:02

teams of experienced loggers, but

46:04

they were drawn from the

46:06

slave market in Jamaica and

46:08

other places in the Caribbean

46:10

and later in Central America.

46:13

And the interesting thing

46:15

is that in many ways, just

46:17

like logging today is still

46:19

one of the more dangerous

46:21

occupations, it was extremely difficult and

46:24

arduous labor, but at the same

46:26

time it was in some ways.

46:28

preferable to the kind of labor

46:30

that people were doing on sugar

46:33

plantation. And one of the key

46:35

characteristics of the enslaved workers, for

46:37

example, in Belize, which is one

46:39

of the places that I've studied and

46:42

where a lot of early mahogany was

46:44

being extracted, the enslaved loggers would be

46:46

sent into the forest, often just on

46:48

their own recognizants to find the trees

46:51

and bring them out. And so they

46:53

kind of become. quite valuable and important

46:55

because of their knowledge and skill, which

46:57

gives them a little bit of negotiating

47:00

power with their masters in ways that

47:02

race on sugar plantations within often half.

47:04

Now, earlier you mentioned that as

47:06

enslaved people were clearing trees from the

47:09

West Indies, to make room for sugar plantations,

47:11

the lumber began to pile up. And

47:13

with all this timber laying around, planters

47:15

started to really hope that the trees

47:17

might produce some sort of economic value.

47:20

And it seems from your book mahogany

47:22

that British Americans actually made

47:24

this hope a reality in that

47:27

they saw tremendous economic value

47:29

in the mahogany trees and

47:31

actually became quite obsessed with

47:33

mahogany wood. Why was this? Would you

47:35

tell us why mahogany became a

47:37

coveted fashionable commodity in

47:40

British North America? Well, it's really

47:42

interesting and it comes down

47:44

to the material qualities of

47:46

the timber itself and this was true

47:48

for consumers back in Europe but in

47:50

colonial North America as well and if

47:53

you know anything about the early export

47:55

trade from the North American colonies one

47:57

of the main things that they had

47:59

to was American timber, pine

48:01

and oaks and other kinds

48:04

of trees that grew in the

48:06

north, but these tropical hardwoods

48:09

and mahogany in particular had

48:11

qualities of wood that were

48:13

different in character than the

48:16

ones that they had available.

48:18

And it meant that mahogany,

48:21

which is typically a very

48:23

dense hard and the fibers

48:25

of the wood are very

48:28

tightly composed. so that the

48:30

wood, when you cut it and when

48:32

you carve it, it yields these very

48:34

smooth and filthy surfaces where

48:37

you can't really even see the grain

48:39

once the wood has been prepared

48:41

and transformed into an object like

48:44

a tea table or other things

48:46

like chairs and dining tables and

48:48

paste pieces that people had in

48:51

their homes. And one of the

48:53

qualities of that very dense hard

48:55

wood was that it could take

48:57

a polish that made it almost

49:00

like a mirror-like surface. And so

49:02

aesthetically these objects were very

49:04

beautiful in their finish and the

49:06

wood tended to have deep, rich

49:08

colors and sort of a glossy

49:11

shine to it that people became

49:13

very enamored with. And it kind

49:15

of went along with a larger

49:17

aesthetic of the 18th century that

49:19

put a lot of value on.

49:21

being able to conceal the raw

49:23

materials from which things were made.

49:26

And you see the same phenomenon

49:28

in the kinds of clothing people

49:30

we're wearing with silks and silver

49:32

buttons and the way other kinds

49:34

of metal objects like silver in

49:36

particular. Again, where the workmanship kind

49:38

of disappears and a great value

49:40

is placed on things that you

49:42

look at them and you can

49:44

quote figure out how they were

49:46

made. And it's similar with these

49:48

mahogany objects is that they just become polished

49:51

and refined to the degree that you can't

49:53

really see the raw material unless you kind

49:55

of take a peek at the back of

49:57

the furniture or underneath a drawer which might

49:59

be left. unfinished. So that all

50:01

kind of played into a larger

50:03

aesthetic that historian Richard Bushman

50:05

has talked about this as the

50:07

refinement of America as part

50:09

of this idea of kind of

50:12

polishing one's surroundings as well

50:14

as your personal behavior. Was it

50:16

this idea of refinement that

50:18

you were supposed to refine your

50:20

surroundings and behavior? Why a

50:22

lot of paintings and portraits from

50:24

early America feature mahogany pieces

50:26

in them? I mean, why did

50:28

artists like John Singleton Copley

50:31

include mahogany furniture and objects in

50:33

the portraits and paintings they

50:35

created? Well, I would argue that

50:37

it's a twofold thing. One,

50:39

it gives the artist the chance

50:41

to show off its skills

50:43

in recreating and paint the quality

50:45

of these materials. And so

50:47

some of these Copley paintings, for

50:49

example, have these colonial figures

50:52

depicted in beautiful silks and their

50:54

jewelry and every little detail

50:56

and their skin tone. And also

50:58

oftentimes there'll be objects surrounding

51:00

them that similarly are showing off

51:02

the artist's skill to be

51:04

able to translate into paint and

51:06

the beauty of these artifacts.

51:08

But it also, I think, connects

51:11

with the way that the

51:13

people in the portraits wanted themselves

51:15

to be depicted. And of

51:17

course, we can't tell from looking

51:19

at a painting whether the

51:21

objects or the clothing were real

51:23

or if the artist conceived

51:25

and someone going and asking to

51:27

have their portrait painted could

51:29

ask the artist to please put

51:32

me in with a beautiful

51:34

mahogany table. So these were status

51:36

symbols. But I was able

51:38

to document a number of instances

51:40

where people actually had their

51:42

portrait painted with a specific piece

51:44

of furniture that they own.

51:46

And again, I think that that

51:48

kind of connects back with

51:51

the sense of status and prestige

51:53

that ownership of these kind

51:55

of objects had for people who

51:57

acquired them in the century,

51:59

you know, people who had the

52:01

wherewithal to have their portraits

52:03

painted. And to, oh, really fine mahogany objects

52:05

tended to be among the upper crust of society, so among

52:07

the elite of colonial America. But even average

52:09

people could own mahogany objects as

52:12

well, and one of the things

52:14

that really surprised me in my

52:16

research was to find how

52:19

pervasive ownership of this exotic

52:21

material becomes in the 18th

52:23

century. So even quite average

52:25

folk, middling focus, they might

52:28

say in the period. could own

52:30

a mahogany table or a chairs,

52:32

that sort of thing, but oftentimes

52:34

it would be with less carving

52:36

and less finish simpler models just

52:38

today like you might buy inexpensive

52:40

Lexus or you might buy a

52:42

less expensive car that would have

52:44

fewer bells and whistles. That's a

52:46

really interesting point. Was furniture the

52:49

most common object made from mahogany

52:51

or were there other types of

52:53

mahogany objects that people wish to own?

52:55

Well, by the mid-18th century, as

52:58

mahogany really kind of enters

53:00

the pantheon of materials available

53:02

to American cabinet makers, it

53:04

still is reserved for high-end

53:07

objects, in the larger objects,

53:09

as opposed to the most

53:11

utilitarian things, where initially mahogany

53:13

was being used for things

53:15

like shipbuilding, as I mentioned,

53:17

but increasingly it's being reserved

53:19

for white furniture making. And

53:21

these were objects that people would have

53:24

made, and they weren't things that they

53:26

would get a new model every couple

53:28

years. They were meant to be

53:30

investments. And the key objects that

53:32

people would typically acquire would be

53:35

foremost, the dining table and chairs,

53:37

and then after that, other kinds

53:39

of sort of supporting objects like

53:42

tea tables, side tables. and in

53:44

more affluent houses you would also

53:46

see case pieces like dressing tables

53:48

or some people may have heard

53:50

the term a high boy or

53:52

a large case piece basically was

53:54

like an armoire and then other

53:57

more rarefied things might include things

53:59

like bedfries. or things like that. And

54:01

most people would, you know, have their

54:03

mahogany in the more public rooms, but

54:05

for wealthier households, you begin to see

54:07

mahogany in every room, even bedrooms that

54:10

were private spaces, bed frames, and armchairs,

54:12

and that sort of thing. Jennifer, why

54:14

do you think mahogany was uniquely

54:16

suited to 18th century American tastes,

54:19

specifically to the tastes of elite

54:21

Americans? Do you think it was

54:23

because it was an exotic slave

54:25

labor-produced commodity? Or was it really

54:28

because of the beauty of its

54:30

glossy finished wood? Or perhaps it

54:32

was popular for some other reason.

54:34

It's hard to say. It's a little

54:36

bit of a chicken and an egg question,

54:38

but I think that on the whole, the

54:40

reason that mahogany was so

54:43

popular was because of the

54:45

material qualities of the wood

54:47

that people appreciated. That it

54:49

retained value over time and, you

54:51

know, these objects, if they were

54:53

well-made at the outset. would

54:55

be strong and enduring and

54:57

things that people would actually

54:59

pass on to their descendants.

55:01

So not disposable, but investments.

55:03

And that all came down

55:05

to the quality of the wood

55:08

that people, you know, took care

55:10

of these objects. The fact that

55:12

they were made with slave labor,

55:14

you know, in a world in

55:16

which slavery was very much part

55:18

of the overall economic system, but

55:20

often at a remove for people

55:22

in Europe. and to some degree

55:24

also for people in colonial New

55:26

England for example there were slaves but

55:28

fewer slaves than in the West Indies.

55:30

But I think that the fact that

55:33

slave labor went into producing them

55:35

was something that people didn't.

55:37

think about self-consciously until really

55:39

as we get into the

55:42

beginnings of the abolitionist movement

55:44

and then one of the

55:46

ways that people try to

55:48

challenge the system of slavery

55:50

and the normalization of that

55:52

kind of exploited labor was by

55:54

trying to shake up consumers and

55:56

make them aware that you know

55:58

the sugar is in the furniture

56:00

that they took so for granted

56:02

were the products of this kind

56:05

of exploitation. And so, for example,

56:07

there were efforts to promote boycotts

56:09

of any slave-produced materials, including sugar

56:12

and eventually mahogany. But I think

56:14

it's sort of the thing that

56:16

you want to keep in mind

56:19

in the time period how people

56:21

were thinking about, you know, the

56:23

larger economy that they lived in,

56:26

I mean, to put it in

56:28

contemporary terms, you know. We know

56:30

that there's still, for example, child

56:33

labor and other kinds of exploitive

56:35

labor that goes into many of

56:37

the products that we use and

56:40

take for granted. And it's only

56:42

periodically that we stop and become

56:44

aware and think about the implications

56:47

of what the true cost of

56:49

our consumer lifestyle is. And that

56:51

includes the labor that goes into

56:54

supporting that lifestyle. So I think

56:56

similarly in the 18th century that

56:58

people they valued the material more

57:01

for its intrinsic properties and the

57:03

context from which it came I

57:05

think was kind of secondary. Thinking

57:08

now about the intrinsic value of

57:10

goods and tea, do you think

57:12

tea consumption would have been as

57:15

popular as it was in 18th

57:17

century British North America if the

57:19

ritual of tea hadn't also included

57:22

the use of luxury accessories like

57:24

mahogany tea tables, tea boxes and

57:26

kettle stance? Good question. I think

57:28

that it probably would have been,

57:31

and it's just interesting that, you

57:33

know, over time also, I think

57:35

you see T become, in the

57:38

term one, historian used, it becomes

57:40

downwardly mobile, that it becomes sort

57:42

of more and more pedestrian and

57:45

part of the everyday life. And

57:47

yet, you know, some of those

57:49

remnants of specialness still surround this.

57:52

But when people have continued to

57:54

consume tea even without that context

57:56

and that sense of ritual around

57:59

it, I think it probably would

58:01

have. because the caffeine and tea

58:03

has that slightly addictive property similar

58:06

to sugar and other commodities that

58:08

were being popularized around the same

58:10

time like coffee, like chocolate, you

58:13

know, people consume those daily and

58:15

I think there you want to

58:17

think as much about the physiological

58:20

aspects of these commodities as much

58:22

as their social context. Tea

58:29

and mahogany largely went hand

58:31

in hand. In fact, both

58:33

commodities came into the American

58:36

marketplace at roughly the same

58:38

time, at the end of

58:40

the 17th century, beginning of

58:42

the 18th century. And the

58:44

popularity of tea drove the

58:46

popularity of mahogany. Tea was

58:48

expensive at first. And when

58:50

you have something that's rare,

58:52

it's only natural that you'd

58:54

want to show it off

58:56

and protect it. This is

58:58

in part how the ritual

59:00

of tea consumption came to

59:02

develop a whole set of

59:05

accessories around it. wanted attractive

59:07

accessories that would help call

59:09

attention to the fact that

59:11

they had tea. So the

59:13

American marketplace came to be

59:15

filled with goods like teacups,

59:17

teapots, silver spoons, and mahogany

59:19

tea tables, kettle stands, and

59:21

storage boxes. In fact, the

59:23

material qualities of mahogany proved

59:25

really well suited to the

59:27

refinement and initial high cost

59:29

of tea. The tight fibers

59:32

of mahogany would meant that

59:34

it could be carved and

59:36

polished into a silky smooth

59:38

surface with a mirror-like finish.

59:40

And it was this refined

59:42

material quality. that meant that

59:44

just like tea, not everyone

59:46

could afford to purchase mahogany

59:48

goods at first. Of course,

59:50

just like tea, the price

59:52

of mahogany dropped as its

59:54

availability increased. As enslaved people

59:56

cleared ever more Caribbean lands

59:59

to make way for sugar

1:00:01

plantations, another commodity connected with

1:00:03

tea, the price of mahogany

1:00:05

came down enough that cabinetmakers

1:00:07

could afford to offer simpler,

1:00:09

less intricate versions of mahogany

1:00:11

tea tables, kettle stands, and

1:00:13

storage boxes, to a wider

1:00:15

variety of early Americans. Looking

1:00:17

at how tea help drive

1:00:19

the market for mahogany makes

1:00:21

it easier to see how

1:00:23

the politics of tea influenced

1:00:26

the American marketplace. But it

1:00:28

still doesn't really give us

1:00:30

a good idea of just

1:00:32

how the politics of tea

1:00:34

pervaded early Americans' cultural lives

1:00:36

or how tea came to

1:00:38

be a political symbol of

1:00:40

the American Revolution. To better

1:00:42

understand these aspects of the

1:00:44

politics of tea, we need

1:00:46

to speak with David Shields.

1:00:48

The Carolina Distinguished Professor at

1:00:50

the University of South Carolina

1:00:53

and an award-winning scholar who

1:00:55

was published on early American

1:00:57

literature and on Southern Foodways.

1:00:59

His most recent book, The

1:01:01

Culinarians, explores the first 100

1:01:03

plus years of America's celebrity

1:01:05

chefs. But for our purposes

1:01:07

today, David's expertise is a

1:01:09

historian of food, food ways,

1:01:11

and the ways in which

1:01:13

tea served as a central

1:01:15

feature of political conversation during

1:01:17

the era of the American

1:01:19

Revolution, is especially important. We

1:01:22

spoke with Jane Merritt specifically

1:01:24

about the tea trade and

1:01:26

we discussed the mahogany trade

1:01:28

with Jennifer Anderson. Together, both

1:01:30

scholars helped us see how

1:01:32

the global trade of the

1:01:34

18th century made tea an

1:01:36

affordable luxury. So now that

1:01:38

our tea table is prepared,

1:01:40

if you will, I wonder

1:01:42

if you as a food

1:01:44

scholar and tea officinado would

1:01:46

help us better understand why

1:01:49

tea was so appealing to

1:01:51

colonial British Americans. Would you

1:01:53

tell us about the taste

1:01:55

of 18th century tea and

1:01:57

how colonists prepared and drank

1:01:59

and drank it? It took

1:02:01

the English-speaking world a while

1:02:03

to understand how tea would

1:02:05

be prepared when the first

1:02:07

tea showed up in London

1:02:09

in the 1650s. There were

1:02:11

no instructions about how to

1:02:13

prepare it. So in Garrowway's

1:02:16

Coffee House, where legend has

1:02:18

it, it was first offered

1:02:20

as a commercial beverage, they

1:02:22

actually boiled the tea leaves

1:02:24

in water for an hour

1:02:26

and left it in a

1:02:28

cast. for several weeks and

1:02:30

then would tap it. and

1:02:32

have this liquid that you

1:02:34

would heat in a mug

1:02:36

in front of the fire.

1:02:38

That broom must have been

1:02:40

so tannic it probably made

1:02:43

your teeth feel like they

1:02:45

had hair on them. And

1:02:47

it wasn't until, you know,

1:02:49

Catherine of Portugal, King Charles,

1:02:51

the second spouse instructed the

1:02:53

women of the court how

1:02:55

to drink tea that people

1:02:57

actually knew how to prepare

1:02:59

it. They're very funny stories,

1:03:01

like the widow of the

1:03:03

Duke of Monmouth, sending a

1:03:05

package of tea to her

1:03:07

Scottish relatives, and they boiled

1:03:10

the leaves and then threw

1:03:12

the water away and ate

1:03:14

the leaves like spinach. Finally,

1:03:16

at the end of the

1:03:18

17th century, there was a

1:03:20

good sense of how to

1:03:22

brew tea, and there had

1:03:24

been a growing preference. for

1:03:26

the black fermented oxidized tea,

1:03:28

known as bohe, coming out

1:03:30

of China, rather than the

1:03:32

green tea, which was in

1:03:34

China, far more preferred tea.

1:03:36

One of the things that

1:03:39

happened, because there is no

1:03:41

instruction about it, is that

1:03:43

it's often treated as a

1:03:45

kind of medicinal decoction. And

1:03:47

any time you have a

1:03:49

bitter decoction, there was a

1:03:51

general procedure how to make

1:03:53

it palatable to English or

1:03:55

American palates, and that was

1:03:57

to dulcify them by adding

1:03:59

milk and sugar to them.

1:04:01

So that's the reason why

1:04:03

tea, by the end of

1:04:06

the 17th century, tended to

1:04:08

have milk and sugar added

1:04:10

to them, just like coffee

1:04:12

had milk and sugar added

1:04:14

to it, and chocolate had

1:04:16

milk and sugar added to

1:04:18

it, while in the countries

1:04:20

of origin, they were consumed

1:04:22

in an entirely different way.

1:04:24

So the English treated all

1:04:26

of these things as So

1:04:28

they were medicinal entities at

1:04:30

first and requiring smoothing out

1:04:33

and sweetening and they've never

1:04:35

surrendered that pension for sweetening

1:04:37

and creaming their tea. Now

1:04:39

who in British North America

1:04:41

consumed tea? Was it readily

1:04:43

available to ordinary men and

1:04:45

women or to enslaved people?

1:04:47

Or was it just a

1:04:49

luxury good consumed by elites?

1:04:51

Yes, one of the things

1:04:53

that we have to be

1:04:55

aware of is that... By

1:04:57

the 18th century, the price

1:05:00

of tea was actually coming

1:05:02

down. It was coming down

1:05:04

because such vast quantities of

1:05:06

it were being imported and

1:05:08

actually so much so that

1:05:10

a terrible trade imbalance emerges

1:05:12

over the course of this

1:05:14

century. But everyone wants to

1:05:16

have it. It's an addictive

1:05:18

substance, you know, that caffeine

1:05:20

and the elation that it

1:05:22

provides is something that people

1:05:24

look forward to in the

1:05:27

course of the day. And

1:05:29

it's, you know, I guess

1:05:31

a popular drug. Now, there

1:05:33

are levels of society that

1:05:35

don't consume, you know, the

1:05:37

good qualities of tea, and

1:05:39

you have to realize that,

1:05:41

you know, several grades of

1:05:43

quality are available in the

1:05:45

Western world. and there are

1:05:47

many stories, for instance, of

1:05:49

servants in households taking the

1:05:51

used tea leaves, drying them

1:05:53

out, and reusing them as

1:05:56

a kind of resale market

1:05:58

for used tea in the

1:06:00

cities. And since there's a

1:06:02

kind of gendering of beverages

1:06:04

with the male coffee house

1:06:06

and the female tea table,

1:06:08

creating sort of gendered spheres

1:06:10

of consumption, if you wish

1:06:12

to be a fashionable townswoman

1:06:14

and entertain your fellows around

1:06:16

your tea table, you had

1:06:18

to have good quality tea

1:06:20

and you made sure that

1:06:23

the local grocery had it

1:06:25

in quantity and it was

1:06:27

one of these items. that

1:06:29

appeared in groceries. That's where

1:06:31

you in a city want

1:06:33

or even in a town

1:06:35

want to purchase tea. You

1:06:37

mentioned that there were different

1:06:39

types of tea. Green tea,

1:06:41

black tea, fermented tea. Were

1:06:43

certain types of tea more

1:06:45

popular with certain types of

1:06:47

income levels or genders? Yes,

1:06:50

and we have to think

1:06:52

too that certain types of

1:06:54

tea had different functions. For

1:06:56

instance, green tea. while it

1:06:58

ceased to be the most

1:07:00

popular tea for general home

1:07:02

consumption around the tea table

1:07:04

over the course of the

1:07:06

18th century, it retained its

1:07:08

popularity as an ingredient in

1:07:10

alcoholic punches, for instance, and

1:07:12

gunpowder tea, which is the

1:07:14

green tea that's rolled up

1:07:17

into little balls, was one

1:07:19

of the classic ingredients of

1:07:21

many of the 18th century

1:07:23

punches with Jamaica rum. sugar

1:07:25

and spice. Indeed, you can

1:07:27

think of a punch bowl

1:07:29

as sort of the collection

1:07:31

of all of the drugs

1:07:33

of the first world trade

1:07:35

system, you know, in one

1:07:37

container. And there's even a

1:07:39

theory that ICE tea in

1:07:41

the 19th century was caused

1:07:44

when someone who was a

1:07:46

punch addict got converted by

1:07:48

the temperance movement and swore

1:07:50

off alcohol, but couldn't swear

1:07:52

off. all of the other

1:07:54

ingredients of the punch bowl

1:07:56

and so just left the

1:07:58

tea, the sugar, and you

1:08:00

know a bit of the

1:08:02

spice left and spice tea

1:08:04

comes into being. I'd like

1:08:06

for us to explore the

1:08:08

tea table a bit. How

1:08:10

did Americans set their tables

1:08:13

and why was the physical

1:08:15

table and all the equipment

1:08:17

or accessories that went with

1:08:19

tea so important to the

1:08:21

ritual around drinking tea? Every

1:08:23

type of consumption around the

1:08:25

meal or even you know

1:08:27

drinking alcoholic beverages in taverns

1:08:29

has its equipment and There's

1:08:31

also set of performances that

1:08:33

are associated with that equipment.

1:08:35

And like everything in that

1:08:37

society, the level of quality

1:08:40

of the equipment, the rarity,

1:08:42

becomes a marker of one's

1:08:44

social standing. And this is

1:08:46

a world that is as

1:08:48

interested in fashionability and taste

1:08:50

as a way of discriminating

1:08:52

oneself and the general malay

1:08:54

of society as your cash

1:08:56

balance. or the size of

1:08:58

your house or your costume.

1:09:00

And one of the things

1:09:02

which is interesting is that

1:09:04

China, of course, produces teapots

1:09:07

and teacups, but in the

1:09:09

Western world, there are elements

1:09:11

that Westerners decide have to

1:09:13

be there that were never

1:09:15

there in terms of the

1:09:17

Chinese world. For instance, the

1:09:19

slop bowl, where you put

1:09:21

the dregues of your cold

1:09:23

teacups. This was necessary piece

1:09:25

of equipment in your China

1:09:27

collection, but it was something

1:09:29

that was invented in Europe

1:09:31

and not in China. The

1:09:34

Chinese cups had no handles

1:09:36

on them and had a

1:09:38

more pronounced foot. and a

1:09:40

lip, you held the cup,

1:09:42

you know, with your thumb

1:09:44

on the lip and your

1:09:46

fingers underneath the foot, and

1:09:48

they were sufficiently insulated, so

1:09:50

it wouldn't burn. But I

1:09:52

guess Westerners did not get

1:09:54

instructions on how to hold

1:09:56

teacups and found the handless

1:09:58

cylindrical teacups. too hot to

1:10:01

hold, so they invent handles

1:10:03

for their cups. And the

1:10:05

decorations, of course, they become

1:10:07

either conventionalized Chinese in terms

1:10:09

of export porcelain or sometimes

1:10:11

Westerners dictate what they would

1:10:13

like to see on the

1:10:15

tea cups or the... tea

1:10:17

caddy, you know, where the

1:10:19

actual tea leaves are kept

1:10:21

or on the slop bowl

1:10:23

and would send instructions through

1:10:25

Canton to the teaware factories

1:10:27

in order to have something

1:10:30

made up to the local

1:10:32

taste. Wow, if we really

1:10:34

look at tea consumption and

1:10:36

the different rituals around it,

1:10:38

we can really see how

1:10:40

Europeans adapted a bit of

1:10:42

Chinese culture to fit their

1:10:44

own cultural standards and norms.

1:10:46

Some things that we have

1:10:48

to think about in conjunction

1:10:50

with this, so one is

1:10:52

that, you know, the general

1:10:54

ignorance of the Chinese language

1:10:57

is so universal that the

1:10:59

literature, which is extraordinarily rich,

1:11:01

we even have, you know,

1:11:03

a Chinese imperial treatise on

1:11:05

the water to be used

1:11:07

in tea, none of that

1:11:09

gets brought over. Indeed, I

1:11:11

think the first Chinese book

1:11:13

to be translated into English

1:11:15

is a book of laws

1:11:17

and it dates from the

1:11:19

early 19th century. So we

1:11:21

have this problem of, you

1:11:24

know, most of our ideas

1:11:26

of what is happening in

1:11:28

terms of Chinese tea, the

1:11:30

instruction from the Chinese. are

1:11:32

generally lost and it's only

1:11:34

by observing the actual processes

1:11:36

of Chinese tea consumption or

1:11:38

the processing of tea. And

1:11:40

one of the things that

1:11:42

we have to remember is

1:11:44

that the Chinese restricted access

1:11:46

to Central China. So you

1:11:48

could only go through Tan

1:11:51

Tan Tan to see what

1:11:53

was happening. And it isn't

1:11:55

until the 1840s when Robert

1:11:57

conquest, the English adventurer, disguises

1:11:59

himself as a Chinese official

1:12:01

and has bribed Chinese people

1:12:03

take him into the tea

1:12:05

regions to see how it's

1:12:07

actually processed and he secures

1:12:09

the plants that will be

1:12:11

used to create the English

1:12:13

tea plantations in Darji. in

1:12:15

India. So we have a

1:12:18

situation where there is profound

1:12:20

ignorance and in the space

1:12:22

of not knowing Westerners project

1:12:24

a lot of things and

1:12:26

they create their own sort

1:12:28

of material world around tea.

1:12:30

So if we were to

1:12:32

attend an 18th century British-American

1:12:34

tea party, who would we

1:12:36

find gathered around the table

1:12:38

and what would we talk

1:12:40

about? Well that's an interesting

1:12:42

question. I mean... We have

1:12:44

glimpses of tea tables beginning

1:12:47

in about the 17 teams

1:12:49

in Boston. And they're townswomen,

1:12:51

often the wives of tradesmen

1:12:53

and merchants. These are the

1:12:55

people that set fashion. They're

1:12:57

the people that get complained

1:12:59

about for dressing up too

1:13:01

much when they attend church.

1:13:03

And they're taking a lot

1:13:05

of their cues from the

1:13:07

metropole, how women are behaving

1:13:09

in the large cities of

1:13:11

Britain, and there is a

1:13:14

literature that gets generated by

1:13:16

tea table women beginning in

1:13:18

the 1690s. And some of

1:13:20

this floats across the Atlantic,

1:13:22

so people know that gossip

1:13:24

is the sort of thing

1:13:26

that goes around tea tables,

1:13:28

just like the male world

1:13:30

of the coffee house had

1:13:32

news as it's. particular raining

1:13:34

discourse, the tea table had

1:13:36

its own version of news,

1:13:38

news about the social world.

1:13:41

And the tea tables in

1:13:43

time began to adjudicate, you

1:13:45

know, all sorts of things

1:13:47

about how society operates. You

1:13:49

know, if you're a young

1:13:51

male stranger in the town,

1:13:53

will you be invited into

1:13:55

households or not? What are

1:13:57

your manners? And Keytables are

1:13:59

particularly evident in New York

1:14:01

City in Charleston. We even

1:14:03

have 18th century indications of

1:14:05

the workings of teatables in

1:14:08

Alexandria and Lancaster Pennsylvania. So

1:14:10

it's a world of women's

1:14:12

social assertion that replicates itself

1:14:14

anywhere there's a town. It

1:14:16

is definitely an urbane set

1:14:18

of manners and folkways. You

1:14:20

know, it's striking to me

1:14:22

from your description just how

1:14:24

feminine the teatables seem to

1:14:26

be. It seems like tea

1:14:28

parties were really occasions for

1:14:30

women to gather, not men.

1:14:32

Which makes me wonder, did

1:14:34

women ever invite men to

1:14:37

tea parties? And did men

1:14:39

even consume tea, or was

1:14:41

it purely a woman's drink?

1:14:43

Men did consume tea, and

1:14:45

they tended to consume tea

1:14:47

at home. The mistress of

1:14:49

the household, much more frequently

1:14:51

served tea in the household

1:14:53

than they did coffee. Now,

1:14:55

there are several things to

1:14:57

think about in terms of

1:14:59

that gendering, you know. Women

1:15:01

were not generally allowed in

1:15:04

coffee houses. They could enter

1:15:06

into taverns. So the rise

1:15:08

of a tea house is

1:15:10

something which tends to happen

1:15:12

at the end of the

1:15:14

18th century in America and

1:15:16

the first purpose built sort

1:15:18

of tea houses in America

1:15:20

date from like the 18

1:15:22

teams. I think there's one

1:15:24

in Philadelphia and there's one

1:15:26

in Charleston. So you have

1:15:28

a public commercial key place

1:15:31

that gentlemen can go to,

1:15:33

but the coffee house is

1:15:35

definitely the predominant male institution.

1:15:37

But when a man is

1:15:39

at home and the woman

1:15:41

in the household is preparing

1:15:43

the meals, it's usually tea,

1:15:45

which is the caffeinated beverage

1:15:47

which gets served within the

1:15:49

household. We know that when

1:15:51

men went to the coffee

1:15:53

house, they typically gathered to

1:15:55

talk about business and politics.

1:15:58

David... Did women also talk

1:16:00

about politics around their version

1:16:02

of the coffeehouse, their tea

1:16:04

tables? It seems like a...

1:16:06

around the time of the

1:16:08

revolution, politics must have been

1:16:10

a very difficult topic to

1:16:12

avoid. And yet, politics is

1:16:14

not something we associate with

1:16:16

18th century women. Yes, women

1:16:18

could talk about anything they

1:16:20

wished, and one of the

1:16:22

things which... is kind of

1:16:25

interesting is that just like

1:16:27

the coffeehouse develops into groups

1:16:29

of specialist interest where you

1:16:31

had, you know, people who

1:16:33

were interested in botany or

1:16:35

people interested in mathematics congregating

1:16:37

in certain coffee houses, you

1:16:39

had tea tables that had

1:16:41

particular women with, for instance,

1:16:43

scientific or botanical interests to

1:16:45

merge. There's an interesting set

1:16:47

of papers from Scotland of

1:16:49

what appear to be proceedings

1:16:51

and findings of a group

1:16:54

of Scottish tea ladies who

1:16:56

were interested in scientific inquiry

1:16:58

and similar things existed more

1:17:00

toward the 1740s in America

1:17:02

than earlier, but there are

1:17:04

people who have particular interests

1:17:06

in the end of the

1:17:08

18th century. a group of

1:17:10

people who in Virginia and

1:17:12

also in South Carolina, a

1:17:14

group of women who are

1:17:16

interested in manufacturers and they

1:17:18

actually have members who go

1:17:21

off into other parts of

1:17:23

the country and draw up

1:17:25

diagrams of various machines that

1:17:27

they see for refrigeration and

1:17:29

other things. Now, just as

1:17:31

women might discuss politics around

1:17:33

the tea table, they might

1:17:35

also do so in poetry.

1:17:37

In his book, Civil Tongues

1:17:39

and Polite Letters, David discusses

1:17:41

the importance of poetry as

1:17:43

a way that women might

1:17:45

express their intelligence and political

1:17:48

ideas. David, would you walk

1:17:50

us through a poem or

1:17:52

two? Perhaps you could tell

1:17:54

us more about the poems

1:17:56

written by Fidelity, the Quaker

1:17:58

poet Hannah Griffiths. Well, that's

1:18:00

a very interesting group of

1:18:02

people there. There is, I

1:18:04

guess you would say, a

1:18:06

women's world of literature dominated

1:18:08

by... Quakers, the Milk of

1:18:10

Martha Moore commonplace book collects

1:18:12

groups of poems that circulated

1:18:15

around the Delaware River Valley,

1:18:17

and some of them are

1:18:19

definitely political, and they tend

1:18:21

to be of a loyalist

1:18:23

sort. Whether it's Mrs. Ferguson

1:18:25

who is in Philadelphia or

1:18:27

Anna Griffiths, they have a

1:18:29

penchant for being on the

1:18:31

more conservative side of the

1:18:33

political spectrum. Tom Paine is

1:18:35

definitely a suspect individual in

1:18:37

their eyes, but they communicate

1:18:39

these things in manuscript. They're

1:18:42

sent through the males, so

1:18:44

you have what is in

1:18:46

effect not a tea table,

1:18:48

but a virtual society that

1:18:50

sometimes meets face to face,

1:18:52

but usually conducts its business

1:18:54

through the postal system, and

1:18:56

it extends. far into the

1:18:58

interior of Pennsylvania and up

1:19:00

into Princeton, New Jersey. We've

1:19:02

been talking about the ways

1:19:04

that the tea table was

1:19:06

and could be political, and

1:19:08

that it served as a

1:19:11

political space for women to

1:19:13

gather. David, were there other

1:19:15

ways that tea, tea consumption,

1:19:17

and tea parties became a

1:19:19

political symbol during the American

1:19:21

Revolution, say, especially after the

1:19:23

T Act of 1773? One

1:19:25

of the things which we

1:19:27

have to think about is

1:19:29

that... Tea suddenly has this

1:19:31

negative dimension to it and

1:19:33

patriots begin attacking people who

1:19:35

have become addicted to having

1:19:38

tea and still try to

1:19:40

get it after the tea

1:19:42

act. So tea drinking becomes

1:19:44

a kind of Tory thing.

1:19:46

And there's a group of

1:19:48

women in Mecklenburg County, North

1:19:50

Carolina, a tea table of

1:19:52

women who engage in a

1:19:54

kind of... I don't know,

1:19:56

a response to that by

1:19:58

drinking yaupante, which is the

1:20:00

type of holly that grows

1:20:02

and it's actually... feel bromine,

1:20:05

the active ingredient in chocolate

1:20:07

rather than caffeine that it

1:20:09

has. So this attempt to

1:20:11

keep tea is a practice,

1:20:13

but to make it a

1:20:15

native tea rather than the

1:20:17

foreign tea. And the tea

1:20:19

act is kind of interesting

1:20:21

too because that action in

1:20:23

1773, you know, to preserve

1:20:25

the East India Company's monopoly,

1:20:27

arises because there's so much

1:20:29

smuggling of Dutch tea going

1:20:32

on in America that the

1:20:34

predominance of tea being drunk

1:20:36

in the tea tables is

1:20:38

not coming through English carriers,

1:20:40

which is, you know, in

1:20:42

direct violation of the spirit

1:20:44

of mercantilism. So they want

1:20:46

to enforce it and keep

1:20:48

this British. concern viable, and

1:20:50

of course they ignite a

1:20:52

firestorm. Like tea, coffee has

1:20:54

its own history as a

1:20:56

global commodity. In fact, it

1:20:59

seemed to be the drink

1:21:01

of choice in the early

1:21:03

17th century, especially in Amsterdam

1:21:05

where merchants met in coffee

1:21:07

houses to share news and

1:21:09

conduct business. Which makes me

1:21:11

wonder, hypothetically, what if 18th

1:21:13

century British Americans had preferred

1:21:15

coffee to tea? How would

1:21:17

a preference for coffee have

1:21:19

changed early American society, culture,

1:21:21

economics, and even politics? That's

1:21:23

an interesting question, particularly, you

1:21:25

know, considering that in the

1:21:28

18th century, I believe late

1:21:30

in the 18th century, that

1:21:32

coffee begins to be grown

1:21:34

in the West Indies, and

1:21:36

you have sort of local

1:21:38

access to it. The English

1:21:40

tried to grow tea in

1:21:42

other places. in the end

1:21:44

of the 17th century they

1:21:46

actually got tea plants out

1:21:48

of China and grew some

1:21:50

in England and there were

1:21:52

attempts to grow it in

1:21:55

various of the islands and

1:21:57

also in the mainland of

1:21:59

the United States. But they

1:22:01

found that the tea that

1:22:03

they produced tasted nothing like.

1:22:05

the tea that was being

1:22:07

produced in the high mountain

1:22:09

regions of Fujian province in

1:22:11

China. So they were greatly

1:22:13

disappointed. But coffee, when it

1:22:15

was brought over, tasted great.

1:22:17

One grown in the West

1:22:19

Indies are grown in South

1:22:22

America. So having a local

1:22:24

source within the empire would

1:22:26

have been an interesting way

1:22:28

around the problem of having

1:22:30

to get tea shipped all

1:22:32

the way around the way

1:22:34

around the way shipped all

1:22:36

the way around the way

1:22:38

around the which, you know,

1:22:40

makes you depend upon those

1:22:42

English carriers. The rise of

1:22:44

the clipperships in the end

1:22:46

of the 18th century in

1:22:49

America is a response to

1:22:51

the fact that, you know,

1:22:53

no longer do English carriers

1:22:55

have to do the tea

1:22:57

anymore, we can go direct.

1:22:59

And if you want green

1:23:01

tea, you want it fresh,

1:23:03

because it will go stale

1:23:05

pretty quickly, you want it

1:23:07

as fast as possible. But

1:23:09

coffee, coffee is a beverage

1:23:11

that remains... so important that

1:23:13

in the 19th century it

1:23:16

actually eclipses tea in American

1:23:18

consumption among women and interestingly

1:23:20

enough it's the women's clubs

1:23:22

that organized in that century

1:23:24

that are the big drivers

1:23:26

of tea consumption and women's

1:23:28

clubs differ from women's tea

1:23:30

tables in the 18th century

1:23:32

and that they usually meet

1:23:34

in restaurants or in hotels.

1:23:36

They go outside of domestic

1:23:38

space so it's no longer

1:23:40

a right of showing off

1:23:42

your fashionable China collection and

1:23:45

the excellence of your tea,

1:23:47

what you do is go

1:23:49

out and enjoy sociability and

1:23:51

conversation with your fellow women

1:23:53

in a cosmopolitan setting. Americans

1:23:55

developed their own sets of

1:23:57

rituals and consumption practices around

1:23:59

tea. And one of those practices was

1:24:01

the tea party. Tea tables and

1:24:03

tea parties developed into important

1:24:06

gathering places for early Americans,

1:24:08

especially for early American women.

1:24:10

Now, as David mentioned, we can

1:24:12

trace the development of these gathering

1:24:14

places back to the 1710s in Boston,

1:24:16

where local townswomen, the wives of

1:24:19

wealthy merchants and tradesmen, purchase tea,

1:24:21

refined accessories to serve and consume

1:24:23

their tea, and invited friends over

1:24:25

to enjoy both tea and conversation.

1:24:28

Around the tea table, Women

1:24:30

discuss whatever they wanted and

1:24:32

whatever interested them. And around the

1:24:34

time of the revolution, their

1:24:36

conversations often included politics. Women

1:24:39

had political ideas about the

1:24:41

revolution, and also about parliamentary

1:24:43

measures like the T Act of 1773.

1:24:45

Around the T-table, women likely gathered

1:24:47

to discuss whether the T-act might

1:24:49

harm their ability to acquire T. They

1:24:51

may have discussed whether their husbands

1:24:54

received or would receive an appointment

1:24:56

as a T-con signee to legally

1:24:58

cell T. Or... What would really happen

1:25:00

to the availability and price of tea

1:25:02

as the act's provisions aim to cut

1:25:04

competition with smuggled Dutch tea? They may have

1:25:07

even also discussed what impact the tea act

1:25:09

might have on their ability to host tea

1:25:11

parties. A social occasion and gathering

1:25:13

place is important to elite early

1:25:15

American women, as the coffee shop or neighborhood

1:25:18

bar is for us today. What's clear from

1:25:20

our exploration is that early Americans

1:25:22

didn't just move from social tea

1:25:24

parties to protests like the Boston

1:25:26

tea party. because of just the

1:25:28

economics of tea. They moved to protests like the

1:25:30

Boston Tea Party because Great Britain knew

1:25:32

of and seized on the importance of

1:25:34

tea as both an economic good and

1:25:36

as a social good to British Americans.

1:25:38

It then used Americans' cultural and

1:25:40

social connections with tea to try

1:25:42

to implement taxation and governing measures

1:25:44

that many early Americans disagreed with.

1:25:46

Thus, tea came to serve not just as

1:25:49

a powerful symbol of early American culture,

1:25:51

but also as a powerful political

1:25:53

symbol of the American Revolution

1:25:55

of the American Revolution. For

1:26:02

more

1:26:06

information

1:26:09

about

1:26:13

our

1:26:17

guests,

1:26:21

they're

1:26:25

books. Visit the Show

1:26:27

Notes page Ben Franklin's

1:26:30

world.com/160. This episode had a

1:26:33

co-producer, Karen Wolf, who you may remember

1:26:35

as our guest historian from episode

1:26:37

114. Karen, thank you so much for sharing

1:26:39

your knowledge with us and for your help

1:26:41

with putting this episode together. Friends

1:26:44

tell friends about their favorite podcasts.

1:26:46

So if you enjoy Ben Franklin's World, please

1:26:48

tell your friends and family about

1:26:51

it. Production assistance for this podcast

1:26:53

comes from Morgan McCullough. Breakmaster

1:26:56

cylinder. Breakmaster cylinder. composed our

1:26:58

custom theme music. This podcast

1:27:00

is part of the Airwave Media

1:27:03

Podcast Network. To discover and listen

1:27:05

to their other podcasts, visit airwavemedia.com.

1:27:07

Next week, we'll commemorate Ben Franklin's

1:27:09

January 17th birthday a little early,

1:27:12

with an exploration of one of

1:27:14

his associates, the Philadelphia clockmaker Edward

1:27:17

Duffield. So be sure you're following Ben

1:27:19

Franklin's world in your favorite podcast

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app, so you don't miss it.

1:27:23

Ben Franklin's world is the production

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of Colonial Williamsburg innovation studios.