Most readers are familiar with the details of the Boston Tea Party of , and properly identify it as a key event in the radical movement that triggered the American Revolution. But how many are familiar with the far more incendiary Wilmington Tea Party of , also led by women? Tea parties offered an effective political arena to protest taxation.
This was exemplified by the passage of the Stamp Act of and the Tea Act of Although the tea tax was minimal, it enraged many because tea was the popular nonalcoholic drink of the era. Aware of a potential backlash, British leaders had limited the tax amount in hopes of assuaging disgruntled colonists.
British enforcement of trade policies, however, had angered Americans for some time. In short, the timing of the tea tax was foolhardy, and it took on a symbolic value far in excess of its revenue implications. Sometime between March 25 and April 5, the women of Wilmington actually burned their tea to protest imposing trade legislation and increased taxation. Unfortunately, there are few details known to historians about this eventβa major reason despite its relative obscurity in the popular understanding of the times.
A well-born Scot, loyal to her country and king, Janet Schaw visited relatives in the Cape Fear region during early She arrived in the town of Brunswick on February 14, and subsequent events soon shocked her. Wilmington was buzzing with political dissent, and Schaw unsurprisingly disapproved. She contemptuously criticized North Carolinians for closing their port to British shipping, and for doing so, when they had an opportunity to corner the North American tea market.
Schaw, never passing up a chance to criticize what she considered an unsophisticated spirit of liberty, did not realize that an eventful and unprecedented event had occurred in Wilmington. Wilmington women had publicly opposed British trade policies and swore to never buy tea again until such policies were remanded. Their actions showed that, in the spring of , many Wilmington residents, like the counterparts in the other American colonies, opposed increased British taxation and trade restrictions.
