The Seventh Tea Ship

Abstract

When a ship carrying East India Company tea wrecked on Cape Cod in late 1773, the presence of thousands of pounds of salvaged, untaxed tea created significant divisions among local residents, thus exposing differences of opinion usually concealed by historians’ emphasis on colonial unity in opposition to the Tea Act. Quarrels arose over whether the tea could be sold because it had not been taxed, or if it should be boycotted as a product of the EIC, regardless of its tax status. The conflict affected local politics for months. Townspeople assembled in competing meetings; mobs ransacked homes for concealed tea; other mobs threatened town officials as the militia mustered in their defense; arguments over principles divided residents of Wellfleet and Eastham. These conflicts were initially resolved through traditional means such as mutual concessions and public apologies. But a final resolution could not be reached until all of the combatants accepted the authority of the First Continental Congress about a year after the shipwreck.