The REAL story of the Boston Tea Party!
July 2, 2005 | In the light of President Bush's attempt at Fort Bragg, N.C., last Tuesday to co-opt the July Fourth celebrations to support his war, it is time for some counter-revisionist history.
The American Revolution was not about tea. It was about rum: the real spirit of 1776.
The tea that was thrown into Boston Harbor was actually tax free, and the men throwing it overboard were doing so at the behest of local merchants who had warehouses filled with more expensive smuggled tea that they could sell only if the British East India Co.'s cheaper cargo was unloaded. They knew that no amount of patriotism would stop the Bostonians from buying a cheaper product.
But the real conflict between the colonists and Britain began over taxes on molasses, not tea. And that's where the French come in. The Founding Fathers not only loved the French, but they also loved the molasses that Paris' Caribbean colonies produced -- and they loved even more the rum that New England distillers made from it."
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