Did Dutch Smugglers Provoke the Boston Tea Party?

• Published in: Early American studies Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 335 - 359
• Main Author: CARP, BENJAMIN L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia The McNeil Center for Early American Studies 01-04-2012; University of Pennsylvania Press
• Subjects: American Revolution; American studies; Business; Business structures; Colonies; Consignment; Corporate profits; Dutch language; Free trade; Governors; Historians; Merchants; Political parties; Smuggling; Taxation; Tea; New York; Atlantic Ocean; Philadelphia Pennsylvania
• ISSN: 1543-4273; 1559-0895; 1559-0895
• DOI: 10.1353/eam.2012.0014

The people of Boston dramatically rejected the Tea Act of 1773. This article imbricates Boston within the intercolonial, trans-Atlantic, and global networks that sustained its commerce. Like New Yorkers and Philadelphians, Bostonians smuggled tea and other commodities (sometimes called the "Dutch trade") and joined the colonial nonimportation agreements. Unlike their counterparts, however, some Boston merchants had also violated the agreements by continuing to import British tea. This article argues that Atlantic smugglers trading with the Netherlands and other European nations helped create the conditions for the Boston Tea Part and helped provoke it.