Benjamin Carp on the Boston Tea Party

In a couple of recent public lectures Tufts University historian Benjamin Carp provides some much needed historical perspective on the “Tea Party Movement.” Carp is writing a book about the history and memory of the Boston Tea Party (1773) that promises to be the definitive work on the subject. As far as I know, he is the first historian to place the Tea Party in its larger global context.

Carp is asking some great questions:

• What is the relationship between tea and sugar? What role does this play in the Boston tea party? Is there a West Indian slave connection? If you can boycott tea to protest against the political slavery of the British Empire, why not boycott sugar as a protest against the institution of black chattel slavery? Did the Boston Tea Party detract Americans from participating in a global anti-slavery movement?
• What was the meaning of the Indian disguises? Carp offers some suggestions.
• How was the Boston Tea Party perceived around the world? How was the event constructed? How was it used in American history?

You can watch Part One here and Part Two here. They are definitely worth your time.