|
Maryland Tea Parties
Teacher's Guide
Written by Marcie Taylor-Thoma
Edited by Jerome Bird and Pat Robeson
Objectives:
At the completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Explain the causes of the Boston Tea Party and the Chester Town Tea
Party.
- Explain how the actions of the colonists to protest the unfair taxes
unified the colonies.
- Read and interpret primary sources.
- Interpret the importance of tea and associated tea ceremonies and
customs in the British colonies.
- Explain the role of women in the protest of the Tea Tax.
- Demonstrate the importance of a "social tea party."
Maryland Learning Outcomes:
Social Studies Skills
Students will demonstrate an understanding of historical and current
events using chronological and spatial thinking, develop historical
interpretations, and frame questions that include collecting and
evaluating information from primary and secondary sources.
- Find, interpret, and organize primary and secondary sources of
information including pictures, graphics, maps, atlases, artifacts,
timelines, political cartoons, videotapes, journals, and government
documents.
- Identify and analyze the causes and effects of historical events.
- Make decisions and analyze decisions of individuals, groups, and
institutions.
United States History:
Students will examine significant ideas, beliefs, and themes; organize
patterns and events; and analyze how individuals and societies have
changed over time in Maryland and the United States.
- Analyze views, lives, and contributions of significant people of the
Revolutionary period.
Political Systems:
Students will understand the historical development and current status
of the fundamental concepts and processes of authority, power, and
influence, with particular emphasis on the founding documents of the
United States and the democratic skills and attitudes necessary to
become responsible citizens.
- Give examples of how the rule of law has impacted the rights and
responsibilities of people.
Geography:
Students will use geographic concepts and processes to examine the role
of culture, technology, and the environment in the location and
distribution of human activities and spatial connections throughout
time.
- Explain how people in Maryland and the United States are linked by
transportation and communication.
Economics:
Students will develop economic reasoning to understand the historical
development and current status of economic principles, institutions, and
processes needed to be effective citizens, consumers, and workers
participating in local communities, the nation, and the world.
- Explain how taxes finance government operations and provide public
goods and services.
Student worksheets used in this lesson:
Key web sites referenced in this lesson:
Primary Sources Included in this Lesson:
These sources have been transcribed but retain their original language
and punctuation. They have been included in the lesson as separate
resource pages. Students will need help in reading and interpreting
these important historical documents.
Teacher Background:
Familiarity with events that led up to American Revolution will be
helpful to put this lesson in the proper context of American history.
Although the Boston Tea Party was "the straw that broke the camel's
back," many events and developments had brought the colonies to that
decisive moment.
The following concepts serve as a general background for the events
taught in this lesson:
- People in the thirteen British colonies still depended on Britain for
many goods that they could either not grow or produce themselves.
- The first point of contention between the colonies and England
occurred over the issue of imports and exports.
- Parliament decided that the colonists should help pay the cost of the
Seven Years War, which was known as the French and Indian War in
America. Additionally, Parliament also decided how the payment should
be made.
In 1764, the first tax law imposed to raise money to pay for the
recently concluded wars was called the Sugar Act. This law mandated
that the colonists pay a tax on many manufactured goods coming to the
colonies from other places. This tax or tariff especially angered the
colonists because they had no part in imposing it. The King and
Parliament had taxed the colonists without their consent. Not all of
the colonists were angry. Some people, the Loyalists or Tories,
approved of the King's decision.
A year later, the Stamp Act was passed. This was a tax on anything that
was printed or written on paper. Again the colonists were angry, but
mostly because they had no representation in Parliament. Many colonists
began forming committees to organize and speak about their concerns.
James Otis, Patrick Henry, Mercy Otis Warren, and Samuel Adams began
speaking out against the British government. Their words began to
spread around the colonies. People protested in many ways: some people
wrote up petitions and gathered long lists of signatures; others printed
angry broadsides. Organizations such as the Sons of Liberty and the
Daughters of Liberty formed. Still others began boycotting or refusing
to buy British goods. Many colonial women began replacing British-made
cloth with homespun cloth and grew herbs in their garden to replace
imported tea.
Some of the Sons of Liberty protested in more violent ways, such as
breaking into the homes of British tax collectors and destroying their
property and chasing them out of town. When Parliament heard about the
violent response from the colonists, they repealed the Stamp Act. While
they repealed most of the taxes, except the tax on tea, they added other
laws that affected trade. To demonstrate their authority more clearly,
they sent additional soldiers to the colonies. The presence of the
British soldiers further angered the people who thought they were being
bullied. The most violent of the demonstrations was later referred to
as the Boston Massacre.
During this time, the colonists began uniting and thinking of themselves
as one country instead of thirteen separate colonies. Samuel Adams
suggested that they form Committees of Correspondence to keep one
another informed about the actions that were being taken to protest
against the British. Letters were delivered by horseback throughout the
colonies. A famous letter written by Ben Franklin to Lord Kames
describing the political atmosphere at the time is an important primary
source to use with the students. It is included in this lesson.
In 1773, Parliament passed another new law. This law allowed a British
company, the East India Company, to sell tea in the colonies for a very
low price. This would hurt the colonial merchants and the colonists
still would have to pay a tax on tea. People everywhere throughout the
colonies began to boycott British tea. Many of the port cities refused
to allow ships carrying British tea to enter their ports. However, the
captains in Massachusetts refused to be turned away. The British ships
arrived in Boston Harbor in December, 1773, and shortly after the Sons
of Liberty met and decided what action should be taken. They decided to
destroy the tea by dumping it into Boston Harbor. Men dressed as
Indians dumped over 300 crates of tea into the harbor. This became known
later as the Boston Tea Party. A witness involved with this protest,
Robert Sessions, wrote the primary source document in this lesson that
best exemplifies this action.
To punish the citizens in Boston, the British sent more troops to
Massachusetts and closed the port of Boston until the colonists had paid
for all the tea destroyed. The Committees of Correspondence quickly
spread the word around, and the colonies united and sent goods to the
citizens of Boston by the wagonload.
In Chester Town, Maryland, the people held a town meeting to discuss the
issue. They passed a set of Resolves (resolutions) not to buy, sell, or
use tea until the British repealed the Tea Tax. These Resolves were
printed in the Gazette, the colonial newspaper. The Resolves are
included in this lesson. At this time William Geddes, the tax
collector for the port of Chester Town, had a brig, the Geddes, lying in
harbor with a load of tea aboard. On May 23, 1774, the townspeople,
undisguised and in broad daylight, dumped the load of tea into the
Chester River.
Another incident that occurred in Edenton, North Carolina, actually
became the first political act by a women's group in America. Penelope
Craven Barker, wife of the port collector, decided to have her own "tea
party." She invited over 40 ladies to enjoy her own special blend of
raspberry and mulberry leaves and discuss the situation. Before the tea
party ended, the ladies signed a petition to protest the tax on tea.
The women pledged, "to drink only apple cider, sweet buttermilk, or cool
spring water as long as the King insists on his special tax upon tea
from India."
The news of this event and the letter reached Parliament. Ladies taking
political action appalled them. An unflattering political cartoon was
printed in both the London Advertiser and the Morning Chronicle. To
support the action of Mrs. Penelope Barker and the Edenton activists,
hundreds of patriots in Georgia and the Carolinas swore off tea and
began ousting the royal agents and tax officials.
Lesson Introduction and Motivation:
- Ask the students to tell you what they think about when they hear the
words, "tea party" (i.e. social event, Alice in Wonderland, Boston Tea
Party, Chester Town Tea Party, etc). Show different images from the
site or other sources to stimulate thinking. Look at the section on
additional sources if you need more suggestions. Explain how the King
of England taxed manufactured goods from England to help pay for the
Seven Years War. Remind the students that colonists were British and,
as citizens, they were still under the protection and authority of
England even though the King in many ways had ignored them for a long
time. The colonist still considered themselves British and still held
on to many British traditions and customs, such as drinking tea. Taxes
had been imposed and repealed several times during this period, but the
most hated and dreaded was the tax on tea. Making this connection is
extremely important for students, since a tax on tea would not be
important to them now.
- Colonists believed they should have more voice in their own
governing. They wanted to be represented in the British Parliament.
How could the King and Parliament alone decide their fate? The battle
cry was "no taxation without representation." Tensions in the colonies
were mounting. Perhaps John Adams said it best after the first shots at
Lexington and Concord were heard, "The Revolution was effected before
the war commenced - the Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the
people."
Lesson Development:
The lesson may be completed as a whole class activity, or by individual
students, pairs, or small groups working at a computer.
Activities:
- Events leading to the American Revolution.
Students first study the historic map of the 13 original colonies on
Page 3 of the lesson. Guide them to think of the great distances
between the colonies and wonder about the modes of transportation.
Using the Thinkquest web site, the students can review a very concise
online timeline of events leading up to the Revolution. On their
Worksheets, they select and list those which they think are the most
important.
- Ben Franklin's Prophesy to Lord Kames.
After reading the letter of Ben Franklin to Lord Kames, students are
asked to relate Franklin's prophecy to the colonists' reaction to the
Tea Tax Act. Help students to understand this letter. It is a powerful
and insightful prophecy.
- & 4. Boston Tea Party and Samuel Adams.
After reviewing a web site, students are asked to summarize the events
of the Boston Tea Party and the role Samuel Adams played in these
events.
- , 6., & 7. Chestertown Tea Party.
By completing these Worksheet activities, students learn about the
Chester Town Tea Party. They will need assistance in reading the
Chester Town Resolves, included in the lesson, that were printed in the
Gazette just days before the incident. This is a very powerful piece, so
take the time to use it. Students then go to a site that briefly
describes the scene aboard the Geddes. Also, make sure the students
take the time to download and listen to the voices of the men goading
one another before the event and the more sober voices of the women
trying to calm the scene. These voices were taped at the annual Chester
Town Tea Party reenactment and have been carefully researched.
- In this activity, the students compare the Boston Tea Party with the
Chester Town Tea Party using a Venn diagram.
- In this Worksheet activity, students are asked to interpret the
attitude of the artist who drew the political cartoon depicting Mrs.
Barker and her friends who signed the pledge not to use English tea.
Through this activity, students learn that attitude can be expressed
in ways other than in words.
- In this activity, students complete a chart comparing Baltimore Clippers
and Yankee Clippers. The information needed to complete this chart is
contained in the lesson and the linked web sites. In brief, Baltimore
Clippers were two-masted schooners that had their zenith before and
during the War of 1812 (1800-1815.) Yankee Clipper Ships, on the other
hand, were designed and built for the China tea trade a whole generation
later (1840-1880). They were larger, three-masted, full rigged ships.
Both Baltimore Clippers and the China Clippers (or Clipper Ships) were
beautiful, sleek, and fast. They were called "clippers" because they
"clipped" time from the voyage it normally took to transit from Britain
or America to China.
Thoughtful Application:
As the mother country, Great Britain felt it had the right to tax the
colonies and control their trade. Since the people of Britain were
paying taxes to support and defend the American colonies, they felt the
colonists should have to pay their share. If the colonists received the
benefits of being part of Great Britain, they should pay for these
benefits. However, many colonists were angry about the new trade laws
and taxes passed by the British government. The American Revolution
began over tax issues, among other issues. Then, as now, citizens paid
taxes for the benefits they yielded
Today we pay taxes for many reasons.
In the Thoughtful Application, students are asked to think about the
main idea of this Exploration and combine it with their prior knowledge.
They are directed to use this information to design a poster that shows
four reasons why citizens continue to pay taxes today.
Scoring Key for Thoughtful Application:
|
The response demonstrates the ability to examine uses of taxes.
|
| 3 Points |
- Correctly identifies four ways taxes are used.
|
| 2 Points |
- Correctly identifies three ways taxes are used.
|
| 1 Points |
- Correctly identifies two ways taxes are used.
|
| 0 Points |
|
Extension Activities:
Encourage your students to plan a tea party. The Tea Party Planning
Worksheet is a good guide. Planning the tea party brings may skills to
the fore including the opportunity: to design and write invitations, to
think about social interactions, to make artistic decisions about
arrangements, and to play the role of good host or hostess. Consider
inviting members of the community and your administration to the tea
party. The students can demonstrate their understanding of colonial
customs by following the proper etiquette. Play 18th century music for
the event. Tapes are available at your local library or at historic
homes, such as the Charles Carroll House. Have the students volunteer
to bake some of the scones, cookies, or other refreshments suggested in
the lesson. Resource people working as docents in colonial homes in
Maryland are available for information or guidance. Your tea party can
be a wonderful culminating activity to this lesson.
- If students want to find out more about Chestertown and Kent
County, visit the Kent County web site.
- A great field trip for this lesson is visiting Chestertown where
the Tea Party was held. An excellent place to visit while you are in
Chestertown is the White Swan Tavern. It is an old inn that still
serves afternoon tea.
- Another excellent field trip destination is the Charles Carroll
House in Annapolis. Docents there will teach students proper tea
etiquette. Lesson plans are available with the tour.
- Read the story The Chester Town Tea Party by Brenda
Seabrooke and have the students determine how much of the story is
fiction and how much is fact.
- To further student's understanding of "taxation without
representation," have the principal impose a high tax on ice cream in
the lunchroom for your class only, without any discussion or warning.
Additional Teacher Resources:
- Seabrooke, Brenda, The Chester Town Tea Party, Tidewaters
Publishers, 1991.
- Garrison, Webb, Great Stories of the American Revolution,
Rutledge Hill Press, 1990.
- Knight, James, F., Boston Tea Party, Rebellion in the
Colonies, Troll Publishers, 1982.
- Meltzer, Milton, The American Revolutionaries, A History in Their
own Words, Harper Trophy, 1993.
- Levy, Elizabeth, If you Were There When They Signed the
Constitution, Scholastic, 1992.
- McGovern, Ann, If You Lived in Colonial Times, Scholastic,
1992.
|
|
