by Paul Lussier
I pulled a tantrum: I beat my chest, I lolled my tongue, I leapt atop the pine table, and I shouted as loudly as I could: “What about the lives?”
They all thought I was crazy, that whatever Otis had been eating I’d been fed too.
They let my fit run its course and then politely asked me to leave. “Nothing personal, you understand.”
Precisely the truth. Nothing personal. Sam’s position was Sam’s, and John’s was John’s. One made a career of inflaming the people and the other made his living in the law, and the others—Warren, Church, Hancock, even Revere—dwelt somewhere in between.
The soldiers got off, deemed “not guilty,” and were set free. Montgomery’s and Kilroy’s thumbs were fire-branded for having shot too furiously and fast, but that was all.
And the relative quiet that subsequently settled on Boston for the next three years was not due to England’s ultimate repeal of the Townshend taxes or the post-Massacre truce in the war of words with Britain. It was like the three years of quiet my father settled into after our difficult Boston sojourn. It was cold war. Not between America and England, but among America’s own.
The people had taken note—of Samuel Adams’s manipulations, John Adams’s triumph, and their heretofore silent, unconquerable rage.
The dragon was here to stay.
CHAPTER 13
Boston Tea Party
To look at the papers and, later, the History books, one would have thought that after the Massacre, Boston was steeped in more anti-British feeling than ever before, thus making the next step on the road to Revolution, the “Boston Tea Party,” nothing but a further demonstration of patriotic verve. Which is only half the story.
Try as the Gang of Six might to resurrect anti-British sentiment anew and redirect the hate raging in the street back toward England where they felt it belonged, the people weren’t taking the bait—not at all. Sure, there were speeches by Warren and Church in which they denounced “crimes acted by a King’s soldiers against the people [as being] the highest treason against the highest law among men, the natural freedom of mankind,” but they rang hollow.
Samuel Adams was ignored altogether. But for the occasional recipe, I stopped reading the Gazette. And things had become so unsafe for John that he had to leave town. So, go—go your silly struggle with England alone! is what the people seemed to be saying.
“It’s farewell, politics,” Warren wrote, adding, “Ah . . . The people, they are dead, and the dead can’t be raised without a miracle.”
Even Paul Revere, the silversmith and engraver always on the sidelines, succeeded financially but failed politically in his attempt to capitalize on the expected anti–British post–Massacre backlash with his engravings of the shootings—copied without the authorization of the original artist, Pelham. Offered at shops, street corners, wharves, and by post, for centuries they would come to represent to posterity the tragedy of the Boston Massacre. They sold in the thousands, but as entertainment, not as truth.
The engravings show the Redcoats opening fire at point-blank range while distressed innocents look helplessly on and gather up their dead. The Custom House, where the action had taken place, is renamed “Butcher’s Hall,” and Captain Preston, depicted as a fiend with sword raised, is urging his men to shoot. The sky is blue. The Yankee crowd appears defenseless. There’s no Garrick. And Crispus Attucks, shown dead, is not black.
Nobody was fooled. Those days were gone.
The people knew the British soldiers had panicked, shot too fast, too soon, and that was that. Irresponsible, perhaps, but few thought them criminal.
Even young Patrick Carr, who was roused from his deathbed after the Massacre to give his account, wondered why the soldiers had not fired earlier, given the abuse they had endured. He refused to blame the man, whoever he was, who had fatally shot him. For his candor, the dying boy was denounced by Samuel Adams as clearly “Catholic”—as good as calling him a sinner or a fool.
And so it was that we came to the ludicrous view that the ensuing Tea Party was a nasty, whooping, and hollering patriotic riot that set us on a collision course with England.
For starters, the Tea Party was an event occurring in complete and utter silence. Rather than a riot, it was a moment of grace in our history—a collective prayer.
How in the world, you ask, was this missed? Not missed so much as ignored. You will find mention of this silence in most every detailed account of the Tea Party, but only in the margins, as side detail, as it is considered incidental to the story History chooses to tell of the people rising up to destroy taxed tea. The story History chooses to tell is not of Revolution but of war with England; they were not the same. In this story, the actual experience of the Tea Party as epiphanic—as a momentous occurrence in the history of America in which diverse strains of humanity cooperated and were joined in true democracy for a shining moment—simply doesn’t register. All that counts are the details supporting the Tea Party’s distinction as the single biggest event compelling us to war, from which there was no turning back.
In that story tea matters, taxes matter. Silence does not.
But the silence was all.
Then the miracle came.
In 1771, when the Townshend taxes were all repealed but for “a nasty little tax on tea,” the problem wasn’t the tax itself. For, if truth be told, the British, quite strategically, had so drastically lowered the price of tea by then (via the Dutch East India Company) that even with the tax included in the price, the tea was bought cheaper imported from England than from smugglers. The tax was designed to break smugglers’ profits, not America’s spirits, to quash the inroads the smugglers had made in Britain’s market on tea.
Challenging America’s independent streak had nothing to do with the gambit.
Yet, as a bonus, the British wouldn’t be able to help but snicker and count it as a victory over the Rebels when Americans promptly checked their rage and chucked their principles to save a couple of pence and rushed out to buy the cheap, taxed tea.
But for the American spirit, it would have worked.
But for Sam Adams and Hancock yielding to that spirit, the American Revolution would have stopped right there.
Tea business was big. This situation, being desperate, called for desperate measures. It was time to appeal to the people, post–Massacre style.
To approach them respectfully, politely, and ask for their help. We are in this together, they claimed. “Since we all love tea, how far apart could we be?” was the ditty of the day.
“Do you, the people, really want Britain telling you from whom you must purchase your morning cup of tea? Cheaper, perhaps; and yes, certainly the merchants have the most to lose, that we freely admit. But what about the jobs these merchants provide, what about our community—oh, forget all that, how could we persuade you to help?”
News of the plan had been circulating for weeks. Slowly and quietly word got around of the desire to dump overboard the first shipment of discounted tea, which was sitting on the Dartmouth in the harbor. There was alluring talk of all being equals, of dressing anonymously as Indians regardless of wealth or station, of swearing a vow of silence (there it was again), of the riot’s ringleaders being selected not from the Assembly but exclusively from the street. There was talk too of three groups of fifty being formed, for which commanders would be expressly chosen for ordinary skills alone, from their whistle to their muscle to their sheer nerve. It was said that only hissing, clucking, or grunting would be allowed, class-distinguishing speech as countersign only, in pidgin Indian, no less: “Me know you” the only phrase allowed.
Lastly, word on the street was that lumberjacks and bricklayers and architects and blacksmiths and breeders and apprentices and masters would be coming together on December 16, 1773, in a way they never had before.
I was twenty-two now, working as a French tutor and doing some debt-collecting for Dr. Warren on the side. These days, my contact with the Rebel Gang was practically none
xistent, and what work I did was purely for cash and generally of the errand-boy kind (“Find me a pretty whore for fifty pence”—that sort of thing).
So it was purely as a rank-and-file participant, not as auxiliary organizer, that I came to what was dubbed the “event over tea.”
There I was, approaching South Church, along with 5,999 others, the largest “mob action” in our history to date, fully intent upon having a ball . . . but silently, of course.
But the real reason I’d come was that as soon as I’d heard there’d be no talk allowed, in my bones I knew this was it: I’d find Deborah.
So with the de rigueur feather headdress on my head and a leather skirt with some rather colorful fringe; my shoes removed and too-thin legs painted red (much too bright: “colonial red,” for the record, is altogether unsuitable for purposes of disguising oneself as an Indian); an attractive combination of turquoise and yellow war paint streaking my face; and a fierce tomahawk in my caking fist, I joined the fray.
Deborah, are you here?
There were candles everywhere. Bright white and tall, some as high as six feet, hundreds of them illuminating the damp baroque chamber inside Old South Church, which had been designated the meeting spot.
In search of Deborah, my heart racing, my breath short, I looked all about me: men of diverse fortunes and fashions and races come together as one—as Indians, no less, as beings indigenous to the land. Even comparative heights were erased; in some instances, to boost anonymity, shorter men had been advised to come up to the height of their taller brethren by nailing extra heels to their shoes.
So with the usual distinctions between men blurred, there we stood in South Church, a solid band of red faces aglow in the tapers’ light.
’Round about six, talk began at the pulpit, something about these treasure troves of tea, about four hundred, stashed on a ship we wouldn’t even permit the owners to unload, let alone pay the tax upon, and how it was our job to dump it overboard before it would be confiscated for nonpayment by the crown.
Sam Adams began with a few remarks about the nasty king and the abominable Governor Hutchinson, whom he described with what for him was uncharacteristic restraint as “a shadow of a man, with a withered carcass and hoary head.” A doctor stood up and called the tea poison—that was a new twist. And according to another doctor, tea was now the root of apoplexy, palsy, or, worse, leprosy. Oh well. I spotted Revere in the crowd, and at the window, Dr. Warren (I was hoping he hadn’t recognized me because this day’s round of collecting debts owed him had proved fruitless).
Then Hancock appeared: “Let every man do what is right in his own eyes! And only that!” he hollered from the back of the vestibule, looming head and shoulders above the crowd.
So, as the drizzle which had been afflicting the day lifted, Sam Adams intoned, “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country!”—the prearranged signal to head for Griffin’s Wharf.
The sound of bare feet (no fancy shoes for me now; how far I’d come!) gliding on cobblestone, feather-light and just as soft, replaced all talk as colonists proceeded side by side in specified groups. Shouldering tomahawks and axes, our faces streaked with color, smeared with soot, burnt cork, lampblack, and grime, we paraded as one toward the sea.
In the town, the British soldiers tried to stop us but, deterred by our threats, stepped back, allowing a “path wide enough for all” to pass on to the wharf unhindered.
“Me know you.” . . . A message was sent to the cabin of the first mate of the Dartmouth, asking for his lights and his keys.
“Me know you.” . . . Block and tackle were attached to chests in the hold, which were hoisted up onto the deck.
“Me know you.” . . . Silence so total that the first blows of the hatchets on the chests could be heard all through Boston.
“Me know you.” . . . The chests, broken open, were spilled over the ship’s rail into the water, the staves tossed in after the tea.
“What a cup of tea we are making for the fishes,” someone dared whisper, and together we all laughed.
The moonlight, combined with the lamps and the torches, made Griffin’s Wharf as bright as high noon. Thousands of onlookers swarmed the surrounding area, remaining silent, in awe.
Convinced retaliation would come at any moment, we worked as quickly as we could.
But retaliation didn’t come. The British naval commander, Montague, mesmerized by the sight, could only find it in his heart to stand on his balcony and admire the harmony and design of men from all different walks of life moving as one.
“Me know you.” . . . Together with a fellow “savage” I voyaged deep into the black-as-pitch hold where the tea was stowed.
“Me know you.” . . . Our routine down pat, we attached the block and tackle.
“Me know you.” . . . We signaled above that it was okay to hoist the chest.
“Me know you.” . . . The chest was pried open with so many axes, perched on the ship’s rail, and on “One . . . two . . . three!” the contents were dumped overboard—WHOOSH! It was received by the sea.
But suddenly, as I was preparing to return to the hold, I caught sight of a fellow Indian boy in a ragged greatcoat filling his pockets and inner lining to the brim with stolen tea.
“Me know you,” I intoned pointedly, but he ignored my warning. It was as if every fiber of his being were consumed with this task and he couldn’t let it go. “Me know you!” I warned him a second time.
This offense of his was serious; it had been decided in advance that anyone caught stealing tea would be treated harshly by his peers, possibly maimed. Stepping closer, toe to toe now: all right, for the last time, “Me know you!”
Damn right I did: He was a she, and she was Deborah!
The contents of her greatcoat, pounds of tea, were spilling from her hem and pockets as she ran.
“East Indian!” someone cried, indicating the presence of a traitor in our midst. And another: “Get him!” But by that time she’d already leapt off the gangplank onto the wharf and was running for cover into the observing crowd. The spell of silence broken, the serenity undone, several men gave chase, I among them.
But I wanted only to hold her, to look her in the eye and tell her I was sorry for having run from Hutchinson’s mansion. It was as if time had collapsed and we were back at Hutchinson’s and this was my chance, the moment I’d lived for, to reverse that painful memory and rescue her at last. In that moment I cared not a whit about stolen, taxed, or drowning tea.
She wound her way—and I, mine—through alleys and into coves and along the quay, clear up to the Common and up past Mill Cove until (I knew exactly what she was doing, I could sense it in the air) we’d lost the other fellows. Oh, you should have seen us zigzagging through the streets, taking our cues from each other, anticipating each other’s every leap, twist, and turn without exchanging so much as a glance or a word. Anyone observing would have said this was a chase, but like the dragon who had given me the courage to bust through that secret tavern door so many years ago, the event was not the experience.
The event was exhausting. The experience sublime.
It was as if we both understood that some of the energy between us needed to be depleted before we met, lest when we came together we’d explode. Finally, after having kept each other running in circles for well over an hour, at Old South Church’s peal of ten o’clock, the pretty thief took cover behind a haystack. Not pausing to catch my breath, I did too.
I had no idea what to do with myself, what to say, think, or do once I was there at her side. Panting, trembling—not from my run—I reached for what I knew, what I’d never stopped sketching, not for a day: her hand. But she held it back.
It was exactly as I remembered it: hard, scaly, dirty on the topside, pink and hot and tender on the palm. Oh, my God, I thought, Apollo . . . Deborah . . . all these years they really were one and the same. Creatures of nature, of revolution, embodying happy, purposeful opposites coming together to survive
.
I was so nervous, I think I called her Apollo.
Seeming to understand, she smiled—oh, to behold that smile again!—and she whispered plainly, “Hello, John.”
I took one step closer. “You know I haven’t chased you down to do you harm. I would hide you, if you’d let me . . . for the rest of our lives.”
Nothing on earth could explain this feeling that I couldn’t live another moment if I didn’t have her hand.
“Me know you,” I softly whispered.
“John . . . I wasn’t stealing tea,” was her reply.
“Was that you that night—at Hancock’s?”
She nodded stiffly. “I wasn’t sure what side you were on.”
I shrugged. “Yours, is all.”
Again, we understood each other; we each knew exactly what the other meant.
She tried to stop her lip from quivering, biting down on it till it bled. I wanted that blood on my lips, inside my mouth, but instead I asked her for her hand.
She gave it to me.
That night, we burrowed into the haystack, our little tent, and she fell asleep sitting up Indian-style, her back against the hay.
I fought sleep, fearful that it would cause me to let go of her hand, which I refused to relinquish.
The first time she woke, it was to ask, “You were there, that night, at Hancock’s, to report for Mein, weren’t you? To bring him down?”
“I was simply trying to save my hide,” I replied.
“You don’t stay alive if you don’t,” she agreed matter-of-factly before nodding off.
The second time, it was I who awakened her. “I’m sorry I ran. For eight years I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
She looked me in the eye. “I was okay. I’ve been raped worse than that.” She squeezed my hand exactly twice and went back to sleep.
The third time, again, she woke on her own. “Can I trust you?”
I didn’t bother answering.
“I was feeling it, and that was all. I really wasn’t meaning to be stealing tea.”