American Tempest

In this action-packed drama of colonial America, prize-winning author Harlow Giles Unger reveals the true - and startling - story behind the original Tea Party movement and the bloody struggle that transformed it from a civil war into a revolution for independence. As Unger points out, the first Tea Party in Boston Harbor had less to do with tea than the political ambitions of James Otis, Jr., a certifiably mad lawyer, and Sam Adams, a bankrupt brewer and convicted embezzler. After the British government tried collecting import duties to pay for American defense, Boston merchants - mostly smugglers and tax evaders - protested. "American Tempest" reveals how Adams and Otis took over the protest movement and seized political power in Massachusetts. Organizing waterfront workers into raging mobs, Adams and the tax protestors swarmed through the streets, burning homes and dragging opponents to the "Liberty Tree" to be stripped, swabbed in scalding tar, dressed in chicken feathers, and subjected to unmentionable agonies and humiliations. Then, on Thursday, December 16, 1773, about seven dozen men disguised as Indians dumped GBP 10,000 worth of British tea into Boston harbor and sent Boston's reign of terror spreading across America. Mobs dumped tea and burned tea ships in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and elsewhere, and stripped tens of thousands of Americans of their homes and properties, forcing nearly 100,000 to flee the land of their forefathers forever. Condemned as vandals by George Washington, the original Tea Party Patriots nonetheless set off a social, political, and economic storm that ended with the Declaration of Independence and birth of a powerful new, independent nation. Combining stellar scholarship with action-packed history, Harlow Giles Unger unveils the truth behind the legendary Boston Tea Party and examines its lasting consequences. "American Tempest" is a superb read, with tragedy and triumph - and exciting action and adventure - awaiting the turn of every page.