In October 1774, 51 women from Edenton and the surrounding area signed a statement dated October 25, 1774 affirming their support for the first North Carolina Provincial Congress' decision to boycott of British goods to protest the Crown's mistreatment of the American Colonies.[1] The boycott was one of the events that led up to the American Revolution (1775–1781).[2]
The 51 Signers' statement, known as the "Edenton Resolves", forms one of the earliest-known protests written and organized by women in the American Colonies, and this protest later became known as the "Edenton Tea Party".[3]
Background
The British had implemented taxes and policies against Colonial Americans[4] to offset the money spent by the British during the French and Indian Wars (1754–1763).[5] They also taxed the square footage of colonist's homes, but they did not represent the colonists in the British Parliament.[6] When the Tea Act of 1773 was passed by the Parliament, colonists became especially angry. The act gave the British East India Company a monopoly in the colonies.[4] Tea was important to colonists for a couple of reasons. Drinking tea was safer than drinking water, although they did not know at that time that it destroyed germs in the water. It was also a sign of sophistication and luxury.[6] In addition, it was a long-standing daily tradition of the British, and colonial social events "were defined by the amount and quality of tea provided".[7]
The money that the British gathered from the colonists was to be used to make judges and governors loyal to the British and prove that the British led the thirteen colonies.[6]
The First Continental Congress passed non-importation resolutions in 1774 to boycott British teas and textiles.[4] At that time, the ideal woman was "fragile, fair, not particularly bright, and certainly not interested in public affairs".[8] It was expected that woman would marry and have children, and thus focus on their roles as wives and mothers over sometimes short lives, and to the exclusion of being involved in political issues. By the 18th century, many women were able to read newspapers, which were published more in a more widespread than earlier. Through the newspapers, women learned about political affairs.[9]
W.D. Cooper. "Boston Tea Party", The History of North America. London: E. Newberry, 1789.
Since women would be required to find substitutes for British tea, cloth, and other taxed goods, it was crucial to have their support during the boycotts and protests organized and popularized by men.[8] Colonial women boycotted all British imports and even formed groups and signed resolutions, like the Edenton Tea Party, to encourage other women to protest against taxes without representation. Unlike the men of the Boston Tea Party, the women did not hide their identities.[6][10] There were similar tea parties in other ports. Protesting and boycotting allowed women opportunities to act as patriots, standing with men on this political issue.[10] Historian Carol Berkin states,
Women and girls were partners with their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons in the public demonstrations against the new British policies and, if they were absent from the halls of the colonial legislatures, their presence was crucial in the most effective protest strategy of all: the boycott of British manufactured goods.[11]
The succession of taxes and policies against the colonists led to the Revolutionary War (1775–1781).[8][12]
Edenton, listed on ship's papers as "The port of Roanoke", was an international port for the transit of goods between the Colony of North Carolina, Europe, and the West Indies. Two-masted schooners had left the port with tobacco, corn, salt fish, lumber, and turpentine.[13]
Edenton Tea Party
Plaque commemorating the Edenton Tea Party, October 25, 1774. Located inside the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In October 1774, 51 ladies from Edenton and the surrounding area signed a statement, dated October 25, 1774, supporting the resolutions passed by the first North Carolina Provincial Congress in the previous August.[14] The Provincial Congress' resolutions were passed to protest the British Tea Act of 1773.[2][15][lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2]
The "Edenton Resolves" affirmed,
Edenton, North Carolina, Oct. 25, 1774. As we cannot be indifferent on any occasion that appears nearly to affect the peace and happiness of our country, and as it has thought necessary, for the public good, to enter into several particular resolves by a meeting of Members deputed from the whole Province, it is a duty which we owe, not only to our near and dear connections who have concurred in them, but to ourselves who are essentially interested in their welfare, to do every thing as far as lies in our power to testify our sincere adherence to the same; and we do therefore accordingly subscribe this paper, as a witness of our fixed intention and solemn determination to do so.[19]
The "Edenton Resolves", list of 51 signatures, and letter extract printed in the "Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser": Jan. 16, 1775 - pg. 2.
This statement was signed by the 51 women: Abigail Charlton, F. Johnstone, Margaret Cathcart, Anne Johnstone, Margaret Pearson, Penelope Dawson, Jean Blair, Grace Clayton, Frances Hall, Mary Jones, Anne Hall, Rebecca Bondfield, Sarah Littlejohn, Penelope Barker, Elizabeth P. Ormond, M. Payne, Elizabeth Johnston, Mary Bonner, Lydia Bonner, Sarah Howe, Lydia Bennet, Marion Wells, Anne Anderson, Sarah Mathews, Anne Haughton, Elizabeth Beasley, Mary Blount, Elizabeth Creacy, Elizabeth Patterson, Jane Wellwood, Mary Woolard, Sarah Beasley, Susannah Vail, Elizabeth Vail, Elizabeth Vail, Mary Creacy, Mary Creacy, Ruth Benbury, Sarah Howcutt, Sarah Hoskins, Mary Littledle, Sarah Valentine, Elizabeth Crickett, Elizabeth Green, Mary Ramsey, Anne Horniblow, Mary Hunter, Tresia Cunningham, Elizabeth Roberts, Elizabeth Roberts, Elizabeth Roberts.[21]
The Edenton Resolves first appeared in the Postscript to the November 3, 1774 edition of the Virginia Gazette and then in the London newspapers throughout the following January.[22]
An extract of a letter containing a copy of the Resolves sent to a recipient in Britain was also published in the London newspapers ahead of the October 25, 1774 statement and list of signatures. The letter extract, dated October 27th, states,
Extract of a letter from North Carolina, Oct. 27. The Provincial Deputies of North Carolina having resolved not to drink any more tea, nor wear any more British cloth, &c. many ladies of this Province have determined to give a memorable proof of their patriotism, and have accordingly entered into the following honourable and spirited association. I send it to you, to shew your fair countrywomen, how zealously and faithfully American ladies follow the laudable example of their husbands, and what opposition your matchless Ministers may expect to receive from a people thus firmly united against them.[23]
The identities of the letter's author and recipient are unknown, as is the original author of the "Edenton Resolves".
Aftermath
"A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina"-Published March 25, 1775 by London printers R. Sayer & J. Bennett, and attributed to engraver and political satirist Phillip Dawe.
As female voices were not always welcome in politics in eighteenth-century British society, the reaction in England was mostly derogatory and dismissive, as seen in the satirical print, "A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina", published on March 25, 1775 by printers R. Sayer & J. Bennett, and attributed to engraver Phillip Dawe.[25] London resident Arthur Iredell also mocks the 51 Signers' action in a letter to his brother, James (an Edenton resident), when he claims,
The Edenton ladies, conscious, I suppose, of this superiority on their side, by former experience, are willing, I imagine, to crush us into atoms, by their omnipotency; the only security on our side, to prevent the impending ruin, that I can perceive, is the probability that there are but few places in America which possess so much female artillery as Edenton...[26]
Despite the threat of ridicule from across the Atlantic, women who participated in protests against taxation without representation were often praised as patriots by the Colonial American press.[4] After the "Edenton Resolves" were published, other women followed suit by swearing off tea.[27] Southern women danced in ballgowns made from homespun fabric (that started with the homespun movement). Northern women had spinning bees for the production of homemade material.[28] A ship-load of imported East India Company tea was locked away in a port in Charles Town (now Charleston, South Carolina) for months because it could not be sold with the tax.[27] At the start of the Revolution,[29] a group of patriots captured the tea and sold it to other patriots to fund the rebellion against the British.[27] They had also ousted royal officials and agents at the time.[27] The Daughters of Liberty, like the Sons of Liberty, boycotted British goods.[30]
There was little written about the Edenton Tea Party for some time. The first book written about the event was The Historic Tea Party of Edenton, 1774: Incident in North Carolina Connected with Taxation written by Richard Dillard in 1892. In 1907, Mary Dawes Staples wrote an article entitled The Edenton Tea Party, which was published by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).[31] Some of the publications produced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries contain additional details about the Edenton Tea Party that cannot be verified against eighteenth century primary sources.
Maggie Mitchell, in 2015, performs an extensive review of the events of the Edenton Tea Party in "Chapter Three: Uncovering the Events of October 24, 1776" in Treasonous Tea: The Edenton Tea Party of 1774.[32]
In 1908, a plaque was dedicated by the Daughters of the American Revolution of North Carolina and placed in the state Capitol Building in Raleigh, North Carolina. It honored her leadership at the Edenton Tea Party.[33] In 1940, a marker was placed at West Queen Street (US 17 Business) in Edenton by the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program. It states, "Women in this town led by Penelope Barker in 1774 resolved to boycott British imports. Early and influential activism by women."[17]
↑ Mitchell states that although it is widely stated that the meeting took place at the home of Elizabeth King, there is little actual evidence that this occurred.[16] In addition, her house may have been too small for such a gathering.[17]
↑ The signers of the declaration include Abagail Charlton, Mary Blount, F. Johnstone, Elizabeth Creacy, Margaret Cathcart, Elizabeth Patterson, Anne Johnstone, Jane Wellwood, Margaret Pearson, Mary Woolard, Penelope Dawson, Sarah Beasley, Jean Blair, Susannah Vail, Grace Clayton, Elizabeth Vail, Frances Hall, Mary Jones, Mary Creacy, Anne Hall, Rebecca Bondfield, Ruth Benbury, Sarah Littlejohn, Sarah Howcott, Penelope Barker, Sarah Hoskins, Elizabeth P. Ormond, Mary Littledle, M. Payne, Sarah Valentine, Elizabeth Johnston, Elizabeth Crickett, Mary Bonner, Elizabeth Green, Lydia Bonner, Mary Ramsay, Sarah Howe, Anne Horniblow, Lydia Bennet, Mary Hunter, Marion Wells, Tresia Cunningham, Anne Anderson, Elizabeth Roberts, Sarah Mathews, Anne Haughton, and Elizabeth Beasly.[18]
Related Research Articles
Peyton Randolph was an American politician and planter who was a Founding Father of the United States. Born into Virginia's wealthiest and most powerful family, Randolph served as speaker of Virginia's House of Burgesses, president of the first two Virginia Conventions, and president of the First Continental Congress. He also served briefly as president of the Second Continental Congress.
Edenton is a town in, and the county seat of, Chowan County, North Carolina, United States, on Albemarle Sound. The population was 4,397 at the 2020 census. Edenton is located in North Carolina's Inner Banks region. In recent years Edenton has become a popular retirement location and a destination for heritage tourism.
The Intolerable Acts, sometimes referred to as the Insufferable Acts or Coercive Acts, were a series of five punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure enacted by Parliament in May 1773. In Great Britain, these laws were referred to as the Coercive Acts. They were a key development leading to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in April 1775.
Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet was a British colonial administrator who was the last colonial Governor of Maryland. Although a popular governor and an able administrator, Eden's authority was overthrown by the events of the American Revolution, and in June 1776 he was invited by the Maryland Convention to leave for England. Eden was well-regarded at home and in the same year, 1776, he was made a baronet. He eventually returned to Maryland where he died in 1784 at the age of 42. He was buried in Annapolis and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Frederick, a noted author.
The Continental Association, also known as the Articles of Association or simply the Association, was an agreement among the American colonies adopted by the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia on October 20, 1774. It was a result of the escalating American Revolution and called for a trade boycott against British merchants by the colonies. Congress hoped that placing economic sanctions on British imports and exports would pressure Parliament into addressing the colonies' grievances, especially repealing the Intolerable Acts, which were strongly opposed by the colonies.
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates of 12 of the Thirteen Colonies held from September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia at the beginning of the American Revolution. The meeting was organized by the delegates after the British Navy implemented a blockade of Boston Harbor and the Parliament of Great Britain passed the punitive Intolerable Acts in response to the Boston Tea Party.
The Daughters of Liberty was the formal female association that was formed in 1765 to protest the Stamp Act, and later the Townshend Acts, and was a general term for women who identified themselves as fighting for liberty during the American Revolution.
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts. The Sons of Liberty strongly opposed the taxes in the Townshend Act as a violation of their rights. In response, the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.
The Chestertown Tea Party was a protest against British excise duties which, according to local legend, took place in May 1774 in Chestertown, Maryland as a response to the British Tea Act. Chestertown tradition holds that, following the example of the more famous Boston Tea Party, colonial patriots boarded the brigantine Geddes in broad daylight and threw its cargo of tea into the Chester River. The event is celebrated each Memorial Day weekend with a festival and historic reenactment called the Chestertown Tea Party Festival.
The North Carolina Provincial Congresses were extra-legal unicameral legislative bodies formed in 1774 through 1776 by the people of the Province of North Carolina, independent of the British colonial government. There were five congresses. They met in the towns of New Bern, Hillsborough (3rd), and Halifax. The 4th conference approved the Halifax Resolves, the first resolution of one of Thirteen Colonies to call for independence from Great Britain. Five months later it would empower the state's delegates to the Second Continental Congress to concur to the United States Declaration of Independence. The 5th conference approved the Constitution of North Carolina and elected Richard Caswell as governor of the State of North Carolina. After the 5th conference, the new North Carolina General Assembly met in April 1777.
Women in the American Revolution played various roles depending on their social status, race and political views.
Penelope (Padgett) Hodgson Craven Barker, commonly known as Penelope Barker, was an activist who, in the lead-up to the American Revolution, organized a boycott of British goods in 1774 orchestrated by a group of women known as the Edenton Tea Party. It was the "first recorded women's political demonstration in America".
Barker House is a historic home located at Edenton, Chowan County, North Carolina. The original house was built about 1782, and expanded during the 19th century. It is a 2+1⁄2-story frame dwelling with Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival style design elements. It sits on a brick foundation and has at both ends a pair of single-shoulder exterior chimneys. The front facade features a full-length, two-tier porch carried on superimposed fluted pillars under a shed roof.
SS Penelope Barker was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after Penelope Barker, American Revolution activist and organizer of the Edenton Tea Party boycott in 1774.
The Rowan County Committee of Safety was one of the 18 Committees of Safety in North Carolina authorized by the Continental Congress and endorsed by the Second North Carolina Provincial Congress. It was established in Rowan County, North Carolina in 1774. Meeting minutes from 1774 to 1776 have survived and are available through a digital collection. The Rowan County Committee of Safety was instrumental in banning trade with Britain and preparing for the American Revolution. One of its major achievements was the Rowan Resolves.
The Edenton District Brigade was an administrative division of the North Carolina militia during the American Revolutionary War (1776–1783). This unit was established by the North Carolina Provincial Congress on May 4, 1776, and disbanded at the end of the war.
Edward Vail, Sr. (1717-1777) was a Revolutionary War Colonel of the Edenton District Minutemen and Brigadier General Edenton District Brigade in North Carolina. Prior to the war, he was a captain in the Chowan County militia during the French and Indian War, as well as member of the Chowan County Courts and represented Chowan County in the Province of North Carolina General Assembly from 1754 to 1762, 1770 to 1771, and 1773 to 1774. He was a member of the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence, which was formed in December 1773.
Isaac Gregory was a politician, Senator in the North Carolina General Assembly, and Brigadier General in the North Carolina militia during the American Revolution.
William Skinner was a Province of North Carolina official, planter and brigadier general in Edenton District Brigade of the North Carolina militia during the American Revolution.
The First North Carolina Provincial Congress was the first of five extra-legal unicameral bodies that met beginning in the summer of 1774. They were modeled after the colonial lower house. These congresses created a government structure, issued bills of credit to pay for the movement, and organized an army for defense, in preparation for the state of North Carolina. This First Congress met in New Bern from August 25 to August 27, 1774. John Harvey served as president. These Provincial congresses paved the way for the first meeting of the North Carolina General Assembly on April 7, 1777 in New Bern, North Carolina.
↑ McRee, Griffith John (1857). Life and Correspondence of James Iredell: One of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. United States: D. Appleton. pp.230–231.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
