An Act of Terrorism or Patriotism?

To arms, to arms, the British are coming!

In the news business, there is a great deal of discussion about ‘objectivity’ in news; news that is free of bias.

But what is free of bias. Is it even possible?

On December 16, 1773, somewhere between 30 and 130 men dressed as Mohawk warriors boarded three British ships anchored in Boston Harbor, They dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The tea had been the property of Willam Rotch, a Nantucket born colonists and merchant. The property damage amounted to £9,695 or $1,700,000 in today’s money.

The action was carried out by the Boston based Sons of Liberty, an underground radical group. They were protesting a new tax on imported tea, passed by the British Parliament. The British government, under Lord North had instituted the tax to help defray the costs of defending the colonies against the French.

The Sons of Liberty created the motto “no taxation without representation.” They were not, at least at this point, talking about Independence. That would come later. What they were demanding was representation in Parliament. That is, they saw themselves as British subjects, and thus were entitled to the same rights as any other British subject or citizen. Their demands were not unreasonable, and there were many in Britain who thought that they were indeed entitled to the same rights, as they were equal British citizens.

Even if their demands were just, destroying private property was probably not the best way to make their point.

In the American history that I was taught in school in the US, The Boston Tea Party was looked at as one of the seminal events that lead to the War of Independence and the founding of the nation — that is, a very positive thing.

But that view is entirely a function of how you looked at the event. To the British, this was a clear example of a terrorist act. The British reacted with shock and even those who had supported the colonialists found it impossible to support them thereafter. Lord North said, “Whatever may be the consequence, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over.”

Ironically, in 1773, everyone in the colonies still thought of themselves as British. Popular history may now recall that Paul Revere, on his famous ride said, “To arms, to arms, the British are coming.” This would have made no sense. Everyone was British. What he actually said was ‘the regulars are coming.” Benjamin Franklin himself suggested that the East India Company be repaid the full value of the destroyed tea.

Newspapers were just getting started, both in the American colonies and in the world in general. It was a new medium. The whole concept of news was then a new medium, as it had never existed before. Anyone with a printing press could publish a newspaper and most printers did, as a second source of income.

How would newspapers handle the story? Was it an act of wanton destruction and terrorism or a bold strike for freedom? Depends upon whom you asked. So what is ‘objective news?’

In the case of the Boston Tea Party, it was the winners who ultimately got to write the history. But at the time that it happened, the ‘truth’ was not so very clear.

The very term Boston Tea Party did not actually appear in print until 1834. Prior to that it was referred to as ‘the destruction of the tea.’ Over time, the event took on a veneer of patriotism, but that would take time, the truth is, as always, a good deal more nuanced and complicated.

When it comes to news today, we often like things very clean and simple. Who are the good guys, who are the evil. This black and white view of the world is really a function of what, until now, has been a very limited and circumscribed world of news and information. When you only have 3 networks and each network can only devote a half- hour (actually 22 minutes) to all the news in the world, there is not a lot of space of time for complexity. But in the world of the Internet, the shelf space (and time) are limitless. Telling all sides of a story may be a bit more complicated but it is a whole lot more honest — and better in the long run.