By Andy Brack and Chloe Hogan | There’s a big tea party in Charleston on Sunday, but you won’t have to hold out your pinky. Instead, wave a flag during this special anniversary celebrating colonial revolutionary fervor that first came two weeks before the famous Boston Tea Party.
Two hundred fifty years ago on Sunday, Charlestonians committed an act of defiance against the British crown by refusing to import 257 chests of tea aboard the ship London, which anchored in the harbor on Dec. 2, 1773.
The next day, Charleston colonists held a community-wide meeting to talk about what to do about the tea. It was subject to a tax the British Parliament imposed to send a message that it “had the right to tax the colonists,” according to the late South Carolina historian George Rogers in a 1974 article in the South Carolina Historical Magazine. Colonists knew if they paid the tax, they’d essentially be admitting Parliament could tax them. And after years of debate about taxation without representation, they just couldn’t cotton to that.
Despite clashing interests of planters, merchants and “mechanics,” or tradesmen, the colonists resolved in the Great Hall of the Old Exchange Building on that December day 250 years ago to not import the tea to facilitate the British raising money via taxes. As a community, they rejected the tea and refused to import it in the future.
And therein lies the significance of the Charleston Tea Party — it represented the “seeds of self-government in these revolutionary mobs,” according to historian Pauline Maier in Rogers’ article. “By the time of the crisis over tea, these had become the General Meetings of the Inhabitants — a kind of New England town meeting.”
So 13 days before the less tepid Boston Tea Party where tea was dumped in the harbor, Charleston had its own tea party — an event that laid the groundwork for the Revolution that was to come.
And what happened to the 257 chests of tea in Charleston? By law, the collector of customs seized the tea on Dec. 22, 1773 and stored it in the Exchange’s cellar. Later in 1776, the tea was sold to help finance the Revolutionary War effort by South Carolina patriots.
A reenactment, 250 years later
Charleston will commemorate the 1773 Charleston Tea Party Saturday in a theatrical reenactment that is part of a multi-year commemoration of the American Revolution locally and throughout South Carolina. The formalities will include bells ringing from St. Michael’s Church at 9:15 a.m., followed by a free outdoor theatrical reenactment of the 1773 meet at the Old Exchange Building at 11 a.m.
Katherine Pemberton, director of The Powder Magazine, called the reenactment the “centerpiece” of the local commemorative celebration. She collaborated with Mount Pleasant-based theater director Pamela Ward, who also happens to be an expert on tea, to create a script which Pemberton said is half play and half reenactment.
The performance will be interactive for the crowd, which will be interspersed by costumed “townspeople,” Pemberton said. “We’re hoping that the crowd who shows up will feel like they’re in the event, like they’re a part of it, and will chant along with us, ‘No taxation without representation!’ ”
After the 30-minute performance, attendees will be invited to tour the basement of the Exchange where the tea was stored and to partake of some hot tea provided by Oliver Pluff & Co.
You can get into The Powder Magazine for free on Dec. 2 and 3. It will offer a temporary exhibit on 18th century tea that will be in place through December. There will also be free tours available of the schooner Pride, which will be docked at the marina, and at the Heyward Washington House as a part of the 250th celebration.
- For the full schedule and more details, check out powdermagazinemuseum.org/chas250.
- A longer version of this story first appeared in the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com
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