The Boston Tea Party is one of the defining stories of America’s founding as a nation. I remember learning about it year after year in school in the 1980s, probably every American kid does. What was never said in those scrappy little classrooms across Montana is that the story of the Boston Tea Party is also one of the sharpest tools wielded in defense of the mythologies that make up the American ideal. The fact that it was an illegal riot that destroyed private property doesn’t just get glossed over; it’s never presented that way, not in the U.S. anyway. It’s noble, the little nation that could refusing injustice imposed by a far-off government. What also gets glossed over is that the impetus for the riot wasn’t simply taxes; it was taxes imposed by government in order to benefit a private corporation.
I started at the beginning and am working my way through your rich archive. Just wanted to drop in and comment how powerful this piece was. I look forward to watching your thoughts unfold as I move forward through time, reading your work. Aside: I do kind of wish we still had room in our cosmology to be in the center of nested singing spheres! How magical is that idea?!
Thanks, another wonderful article, and as always I learn lots of new things. I figured there was a lot more to the Boston Tea Party than the story we have been told.
Stories are powerful. I love what Philip Pullman says in the book "The Emerald Mile" - “Thou shalt not” is soon forgotten, but “Once upon a time” lasts forever.
I love your final thoughts on finding and amplifying people in communities doing real work. I have a wonderful friend who has a great motto for us all - "Make a Difference, Be The Change".
Maybe it's the privilege talking -- I had a pretty good education, especially in history, which was always my favorite* -- but there just so much to cover, it seems to me that the best we can hope for in elementary/secondary is a broad noncontroversial overview. Pretty much every single year from, well, pick any starting point, is going to have events and subtlety enough to support a PhD worth of study/work. The idea, it seems to me, is to give just the most general sense of the sweep of events, and then expect students to spend a lifetime learning various stories in whatever granular detail suits them as they go.
I think of 'they never really told me X' as less of an indictment than an invitation.
On the takings question, I totally hear you. But ownership of land is a construct, and the idea that your ownership can be compromised by the state for the general welfare isn't that shocking. It wouldn't make sense that some one could buy up the mouth of a canyon and force a railroad to divert possibly hundreds of miles. This can go too far: I had a takings case in the 90s, arising from the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, and we lost on a similar theory (the government screwing you is an inherent risk, so suck it). They ignored our best cases, which had arisen (a) from the quasi-war with France during the first Adams Administration and (b) the purchase of Florida from Spain.
* And still is. Picture a fat old white guy all hopped up on qat excitedly explaining the Burr treason trial and the continuing legal relevance of the various rulings to a group of Yemeni men on a Sana'a terrace, and you'll get the idea.
Thank you, Antonia. As Barry Lopez wrote in _Crow and Weasel_:
"'I would ask you to remember only this one thing,' said Badger. 'The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day you will be good storytellers. Never forget these obligations.'"
I started at the beginning and am working my way through your rich archive. Just wanted to drop in and comment how powerful this piece was. I look forward to watching your thoughts unfold as I move forward through time, reading your work. Aside: I do kind of wish we still had room in our cosmology to be in the center of nested singing spheres! How magical is that idea?!
Thanks, another wonderful article, and as always I learn lots of new things. I figured there was a lot more to the Boston Tea Party than the story we have been told.
Stories are powerful. I love what Philip Pullman says in the book "The Emerald Mile" - “Thou shalt not” is soon forgotten, but “Once upon a time” lasts forever.
I love your final thoughts on finding and amplifying people in communities doing real work. I have a wonderful friend who has a great motto for us all - "Make a Difference, Be The Change".
Happy New Year!
Maybe it's the privilege talking -- I had a pretty good education, especially in history, which was always my favorite* -- but there just so much to cover, it seems to me that the best we can hope for in elementary/secondary is a broad noncontroversial overview. Pretty much every single year from, well, pick any starting point, is going to have events and subtlety enough to support a PhD worth of study/work. The idea, it seems to me, is to give just the most general sense of the sweep of events, and then expect students to spend a lifetime learning various stories in whatever granular detail suits them as they go.
I think of 'they never really told me X' as less of an indictment than an invitation.
On the takings question, I totally hear you. But ownership of land is a construct, and the idea that your ownership can be compromised by the state for the general welfare isn't that shocking. It wouldn't make sense that some one could buy up the mouth of a canyon and force a railroad to divert possibly hundreds of miles. This can go too far: I had a takings case in the 90s, arising from the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, and we lost on a similar theory (the government screwing you is an inherent risk, so suck it). They ignored our best cases, which had arisen (a) from the quasi-war with France during the first Adams Administration and (b) the purchase of Florida from Spain.
* And still is. Picture a fat old white guy all hopped up on qat excitedly explaining the Burr treason trial and the continuing legal relevance of the various rulings to a group of Yemeni men on a Sana'a terrace, and you'll get the idea.
Thank you, Antonia. As Barry Lopez wrote in _Crow and Weasel_:
"'I would ask you to remember only this one thing,' said Badger. 'The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day you will be good storytellers. Never forget these obligations.'"