America's First Anti-Globalization Protest?

The corporation challenges the people

And then, Hewes says, on a cold November evening, the first of the East India Company’s ships of tax-free tea arrived.

“On the 28th of November, 1773,” Hewes writes, “the ship Dartmouth with 112 chests arrived; and the next morning after, the following notice was widely circulated.

“Friends, Brethren, Countrymen! That worst of plagues, the detested TEA, has arrived in this harbour. The hour of destruction, a manly opposition to the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every friend to his country, to himself, and to posterity, is now called upon to meet in Faneuil Hall, at nine o’clock, this day, at which time the bells will ring, to make a united and successful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive measure of administration.”

The reaction to the pamphlet - back then one part of what was truly a “free press” in America - was emphatic. Hewes account was that, “Things thus appeared to be hastening to a disastrous issue. The people of the country arrived in great numbers, the inhabitants of the town assembled. This assembly which was on the 16th of December, 1773, was the most numerous ever known, there being more than 2000 from the country present.”

Hewes continued: “This notification brought together a vast concourse of the people of Boston and the neighbouring towns, at the time and place appointed. Then it was resolved that the tea should be returned to the place from whence it came in all events, and no duty paid thereon. The arrival of other cargoes of tea soon after, increased the agitation of the public mind, already wrought up to a degree of desperation, and ready to break out into acts of violence, on every trivial occasion of offence....

“Finding no measures were likely to be taken, either by the governor, or the commanders, or owners of the ships, to return their cargoes or prevent the landing of them, at 5 o’clock a vote was called for the dissolution of the meeting and obtained. But some of the more moderate and judicious members, fearing what might be the consequences, asked for a reconsideration of the vote, offering no other reason, than that they ought to do every thing in their power to send the tea back, according to their previous resolves. This, says the historian of that event, touched the pride of the assembly, and they agreed to remain together one hour.”

The people assembled in Boston at that moment faced the same issue that citizens who oppose combined corporate and co-opted government power all over the world confront today: should they take on a well-financed and heavily armed opponent, when such resistance could lead to their own imprisonment or death? Even worse, what if they should lose the struggle, leading to the imposition on them and their children an even more repressive regime to support the profits of the corporation?