Turning Point towards Rebellion?
Just how much is enough to force
someone to rebel?
 Provide at least one example to support your
position.
o This example can either be historical OR from your own life.
Unit 3, Journal #3
Group Activity: Primary Document Analysis
 Read the entire song aloud as a group
 Answer the questions described under #2
 Choose a narrator, actors, and recorder
o CREATE A SKIT!
Revolutionary Tea
Who are the players…?
“Old Lady”…..“Island Queen”
“Her daughter”…..“The Bouncing Girl”
“Old Lady’s Pockets”…..
“Her Servants”…..
BOUNCING
DAUGHTER =
COLONIES
OLD LADY =
BRITAIN
OLD LADY’S POCKETS=
BRITAIN’S TREASURY
HER SERVANTS=
REPRESENTATIVES;
ROYAL GOVERNORS,
TAX AGENTS, ETC.
What makes this song
significant?
Revolutionary Tea
• How can we define the word “propaganda”?
PROPAGANDA
“information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help
or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.”
Supported by opinion – used to sway the public’s ideas on a
topic.
• Where have we seen propaganda used before during the
Road to Revolution?
 What about in our own lives?
Propaganda
• Is “Revolutionary Tea” an example of
propaganda?
• What bias is shown in the song?
 Wealthy vs. poor – which is more accurate?
 Good vs. evil – who is described as innocent in the
poem? Who is the “angry, mean” character?
Propaganda
• Take two minutes to discuss with a partner how
the BRITISH would re-write Revolutionary Tea
from their perspective.
• Write the answers to the following questions in
the space provided on your notesheet:
 How might the characters be re-written?
 What would the new story be about?
THINK – PAIR – SHARE
Grenville  Charles Townshend  Lord Frederick North
• North realizes that the Townshend Acts cost
Britain more to enforce than they received in
profit
 Convinces Parliament to repeal Townshend Actsexcept for the tax on TEA
Taxation
• 1773- British East India Company (monopoly on tea
imports) is hit hard by colonial boycotts from the
Townshend Acts.
• Lord North issued the “Tea Act”:
• Grants companies the right to sell tea to colonists without taxes
• East India Company stopped using colonial merchants, and
instead sold directly to consumers to avoid taxes.
• British tea was cheaper, but to buy it was to pay a Townshend
duty and cut out merchant profits!
• Instead of colonists accepting this new rule openly,
they protested violently.
The Tea Act
• Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty rounded up
angry colonists to participate in a
rebellion/protest of the Tea Act
• December 16, 1773 Boston rebels disguised as Native Americans invade
three British tea ships that are anchored in Boston
Harbor.
 These “Indians” dumped 300 chests (almost $2 million
dollars worth in today’s money) of East India
Company’s tea into the harbor.
The Boston Tea Party, 1773
I dressed myself in the costume of an Indian, equipped with a
small hatchet, which I and my associates denominated the
tomahawk, with which, and a club, after having painted my
face and hands with coal dust in the shop of a blacksmith, I
repaired to Griffin's wharf, where the ships lay that contained
the tea...
We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches
and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard,
and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first
cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks, so as
thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water. In about
three hours from the time we went on board, we had thus
broken and thrown overboard every tea chest to be found in
the ship, while those in the other ships were disposing of the
tea in the same way, at the same time. We were surrounded by
British armed ships, but no attempt was made to resist us.
– Anonymous, "Account of the Boston Tea Party by a Participant," (1773)
Indians Dump Tea Into Boston Harbor!
• Why Indians??
 Destroying the tea was an act of treason; as a result
many men did disguise themselves as Indians to hide
their identity.
o Disguises can give people a sense of “freedom” to behave
without worrying about the consequences of their actions.
How could the Tea Act and the Boston Tea Party
help to turn heads towards Revolution?
Tea Act
EQ
BOSTON
TEA PARTY