by (AJ) Eric
On December 16, 1773, roughly 100 insurgents boarded four merchant vessels at Boston Harbor and threw 342 crates of tea overboard, protesting a newly-imposed tax on tea and the English Parliament that had unilaterally ordered it.
Sadly, they probably didn’t encounter a letter like this one in the week or so before the event.
December, 1773
Dear Sons of Liberty:
It has come to our attention that you are planning to protest the new tax on tea by boarding the four ships in Boston Harbor that brought it here and dumping the tea overboard.
Well and good. As one of our leaders said almost a decade ago. “taxation without representation is tyranny.” It is our hope that this action will be memorable, to the point of preventing the English Parliament from persisting in actions such as this, and from interfering with the right of companies originating here in New England to import and sell tea in competition with the East India Company.
We are eager to join you tonight and assist you in destroying the tea. Our only concern is that we have heard that you are planning to disguise yourselves as Mohawk warriors while doing this.
We fully understand the need for disguise. This mission will be considered treasonous by Governor Hutchinson’s colonial government here in Massachusetts Bay, and even though it will be happening under cover of dark, the chance of being identified is significant. (All the more so if, as some suggest, scores of bystanders come out to watch after the protest meeting at Faneuil Hall breaks up.)
However, your choice of disguise concerns us greatly. Indian braves — indeed, Mohawk males in general — are usually bare-skinned above the waist, and often do not wear very much below. Besides being a rather unconvincing choice of outfit for those of us who spend considerably more time indoors handling paperwork than outdoors hunting and gathering, there is a fundamental difficulty here.
Ocean harbors in general tend to be windy and damp, especially at night, even in temperate times of year. But here in the middle of December, it is bound to be bitterly cold as well. Any white man braving these conditions while half-clothed or worse is likely to become seriously ill. I believe that even our red neighbors do not usually make war this time of year, and hardly ever fight after dark.
There is also the question of removing those disguises afterward and re-adopting a normal appearance to avoid suspicion. It cannot have escaped your notice that Mohawk warriors cut their hair in distinctive and dramatic fashion. Any attempt on our part to do the same would lead to disaster later: even those of us who wear powdered wigs during the day are unlikely to plausibly wear them outside of our employment.
War paint may also be a concern: Indians know how to use it and how to remove it afterward. Few if any of us have that experience, and anyone who uses the wrong kind of paint and finds himself unable to remove it when the time comes will most likely have to wait days for it to wear off.
Fortunately, there is an alternative that solves most if not all of these difficulties. We need to disguise ourselves as women instead.
In contrast to the Mohawks, no sane woman in this colony would venture outside in this weather and not be fully clothed — probably covered as completely as they could be, for greatest comfort. And that extends to their head cover: our lack of feminine hair styles would not be visible. As for war paint, many women paint their faces even more extensively than Indian warriors do, albeit not as noticeably. We can do the same.
One additional benefit: it makes the most sense for us to pry open some or all of the wooden crates of tea, to assure that they cannot be recovered from the harbor floor the following day. It may occur to some of us to take a few of the tea leaves home while we await the repeal of the tax. Someone costumed as a Mohawk would have difficulty concealing anything. Fully covered in a woman’s clothes, it would be considerably easier.
And a final point: we have heard people refer to the upcoming endeavor as the Boston Tea Party. Who better than women to take part in such an event?
Respectfully yours,
the Hutchinson Street Irregulars