I ran across an excellent article this morning.  I should have found it yesterday and posted it about it, but I had kind of been burned out regarding all things Steemit, and so decided to take a day off--more or less.

The Boston Tea Party was not a singular event, in that other parts of the thirteen British colonies that made up the original united states, were also resisting the new Tea Act passed by Parliament at, or around that same time, and this article makes that clear.  But, Boston--once the cradle of freedom, and the spirit of independence--was clearly the focal point against...what, exactly...Taxes?  Well, yes and no...  Have a look:

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2018/12/16/today-in-history-the-boston-tea-party/

![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmY9dDyRJiuz3pejCVYnj4XcsRvVwxQYi8x2SrLbcmbES8/image.png)

Here is an excerpt:

"Contrary to popular belief, this was not specifically a tax protest – the patriots did object to taxes levied without representation, but 1773 Tea Act had actually lowered the taxes on tea. Instead, the colonists disavowed mercantile practices of the British government, specifically the tea monopoly that was granted to the East India Tea Company through the law. Additionally, they renounced the idea that Parliamentary law was supreme over all of the British Empire and could override the will of the colonial assemblies.

Upon learning of the event, John Adams wrote: 'This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, so intrepid, and so inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an Epocha in History'.”

And what were the "mercantile practices" to which the article's authors refer?  Basically, mercantilism means that the home country expects their colonies to act (and exist) purely to provide wealth and resources to the home country.   There is no respect in mercantilist societies for "local control," or "self determination," or "colonial rights."  Everything is supposed to be done within the colonies with an eye for what is best for the home country--even if no one now living in the colony has any real ties at all to the home country--indeed, even if they've never even been there.

![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPwNJsSqHQMyTzVfaAJgM4WcYWnLRTS5aEQmXTZk5RKqb/image.png)

Those mercantilism demands seemed reasonable enough to America's earliest settlers.  In fact, many of the earliest settlers here in what is now the USA were born in England, or were even paid by the English crown to come here. But as generations passed, and the fifth and sixth generation of settlers began to rise to prominence in the American colonies, that feeling of attachment to England had finally been broken, and many colonists here began to think of themselves as American first, and Britains a distant second--if at all.

These newer descendants of the English settlers began demanding more and more control--such as the right to trade with their own ships at any port they chose, the right to import or export anything they liked for the best profit--even the right to coin their own currency and to treat with other foreign powers.  In short, the gap between what the old stuffed shirts within the British Board of Trade and the Court of George III thought about how the colonies should operate, and what the colonists thought of the same subject had increased to such a point that the eventual split, by 1773, had already become irreparable and definite.

Any of this starting to sound similar to: "politicians inside the beltway" v. "the vast majority of American people--especially in flyover country?"  If it does.  It should.

God be with us.