Boston Tea Party at 250: Congregationalists and the American Revolution

This virtual conversation about the Boston Tea Party featured Dr. Robert Allison and New England’s Hidden Histories Project Director Dr. Tricia Peone. Their discussion explored special documents in the CLA collections related to the Boston Tea Party and discussed Congregationalism’s connections to this momentous event.

On December 16, 1773, Bostonians marched out of Old South Meeting House and destroyed three cargoes of East India Tea. This was one of the greatest acts of civil disobedience of all time, and the event that precipitated the Revolution. Why did this happen? What was the political background to the Destruction of the Tea (it would not be called the Tea Party for another half-century)? And why was Massachusetts already on the road to rebellion when the Tea Party took place?

SPEAKER BIOS

Dr. Robert J. Allison chairs Revolution 250, serves as President of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and is a Professor of History at Suffolk University. His books include short histories of the American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party.

Dr. Tricia Peone is the Project Director of New England’s Hidden Histories at the Congregational Library & Archives. She holds a PhD in history from the University of New Hampshire with a specialization in the early modern Atlantic world and history of science. Prior to joining the CLA in 2022, she was a research scholar at Historic New England for the Recovering New England’s Voices project and has previously worked as a lecturer and historical consultant. Dr. Peone’s scholarship focuses on early modern magic and witchcraft and her work on these subjects has appeared in journals, books, blogs, and on radio and television.