Protest in the Long Eighteenth Century

Yvonne Fuentes, Mark R. Malin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000393132
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This edited collection of essays focuses on the topic of protest during the Enlightenment of the long eighteenth century (roughly 1670-1833).

Resistance in the eighteenth century was extensive, and the act of protest to foment meaningful societal change took on many forms from the circulation of ballads, swearing of oaths, to riots and work stoppages, or the composition of essays, novels, posters, caricatures, political cartoons, as well as theater and opera. The contributors to this volume examine the causes of protest as well as the broad ways in which common artifacts such as poles, trees, drums, conchs, and songs acted as flashpoints for conflict and vehicles of protest. Rather than approaching the topic with strict geographical, temporal, and structural limitations, this book focuses on the time period from an international perspective and an interdisciplinary scope.

Because of its wide scope, this book is an important contribution to the subject that will be of interest to both faculty and students of the history of protest, resistance and the changes that these forces bring as it also reminds us that the protests of today are rooted in historical resistances of the past.

Part I
Obnoxious, Disorderly, and Defiant

Reaction and Counterreaction

1 “So Many People of All Sorts Rose in Opposition”

Examining the Diversity of Participants in Colonial Crowd Action

Molly Perry

Introduction

When protestors in Charleston, South Carolina paraded through the streets shouting, “Liberty and No Stamp Tax!” the risks of engaging in politics outdoors became clear. A group of free and enslaved people of color joined the crowd loudly shouting “Liberty!” In a marketplace filled with the diverse colonial population – men and women, free and enslaved, resident and sailor – a moment of imperial political disruption created community crisis. Free and enslaved people of color excluded from the formal body politic pressed upon these fissures. As the dueling claims of “Liberty!” filled the air, the protesting crowd quickly dispersed.

After months of failed lobbying efforts, colonists demanding repeal of the Stamp Act took to the streets in protest. The law required individuals to purchase and affix a small stamp indicating a tax payment onto a variety of paper documents ranging from court filings and customs clearances to newspapers and decks of cards. Opposition to this first direct tax passed by Parliament drew together a coalition of subjects from throughout the twenty-six British American colonies. Protesting colonists pursued aggressive strategies on the streets between August 1765 and May 1766 to prevent tax collection. Crowds hung effigies, staged unruly parades, created mock trials, tore down buildings, occupied communal spaces, burned stamp papers, and threatened to destroy cargoes. Through violent acts, crowds targeted, intimidated, and forced the resignation of stamp officials and the retreat of royal governors. A sympathetic print media spread impressionistic accounts of their success, encouraging others to copy the protestors’ actions. Starting in Boston and Newport, similar crowd protests spread from Nova Scotia to Nevis.

Protests against the Stamp Act were exciting events designed to recruit a crowd to stop tax collection. The movement benefited from the universal popularity of the message: “No Tax!” Anti-stamp colonists directly solicited participation from spectators by encouraging interaction in theatrical shows, singing songs of protest, and drinking toasts with political slogans. Hanging effigies and mock funerals appropriated well-known British cultural rituals while featuring music, flags, fireworks, as well as food and drink to attract attention. These exceptional scenes of street protest played before unintended audiences and spectators: free and enslaved people of color, as well as dockside laborers and itinerant ‘Jack Tar’ sailors. As the crowds grew, individual participants brought their own priorities, beliefs, and expectations into the events. This chapter examines the diversity of port residents participating in the colonial crowd, indicating how these individuals denied a voice in the formal body politic participated and impacted emerging protest strategies.

By restoring the full population of the port community into these crowd actions, this chapter demonstrates how controversial street protests were within the British Empire. The spread of street protest into colonial communities was not foreordained, but rather demonstrates a careful consideration of the risks and rewards by a spectrum of community residents. Opponents of the stamp tax constantly shifted tactics, arguments, and membership in pursuit of a solitary goal: repeal of the tax. The pressing question of 1765 was how to build a coalition capable of convincing Members of Parliament, Ministers, and King George III to act swiftly for tax relief through repeal. This loose protest structure combined political action on the street with continued influence campaigns in England.

Through a savvy use of print media, colonial newspapers spread reports of the effectiveness of street protests to stopping the tax. Anti-stamp colonists believed that success could only be achieved through universal non-payment and protest. At the same time, news arriving on ships and in private correspondence suggested to residents of port towns the violence and disorder possible from engaging in crowd action. Throughout the protests, metropolitan opinions of colonial actions were weighed to judge the efficacy of the crowd action in achieving their imperial goals of repeal. People of color and itinerant sailors played a central role in these discussions, the spread of protests, and the shifting strategies of dissent.

The street protests against the Stamp Act provide a critical moment to examine the full colonial crowd. In scholarship and university survey courses, this wave of colonial protests is described as the “prologue to revolution” and the “first stage of American Independence” placing colonists on the Mainland and West Indies on the path towards independence or loyalty.¹ The Stamp Act Crisis is portrayed as a breaking point in empire – the political awakening of mainland American colonists suffering under the burden of an imperial government denying their constitutional rights and imposing unreasonable burdens upon them. The pull towards explaining the origins of the American Revolution emphasizes these first crowd protests as consensual and inevitable, setting a pattern of trust-building and solidarity that would result in a unique national identity and protest tradition. Examined more closely, the central roles played by people of color and itinerant sailors reveal a series of rapidly shifting protests strategies and imperial discourses on class, race, and political rights underpinning this political moment.

Crisis and Disruption

Throughout the British colonies, communities knew all too well the disorders of impressment riots and feared the possibility of slave rebellions. The fragile nature of colonial society was universally understood. Early violence by crowds described in newspapers as “the lowest of the Mob” in the cities of Boston and Newport engaging in a “War of plunder, of general leveling” aimed at “taking away the distinction of rich and poor” served to moderate the strategies of dissent of many in the larger cities including New York and Philadelphia as well as the regions with slave majorities like South Carolina and the West Indies.² Approaching the Christmas holidays, slaveholders in communities in South Carolina, Georgia, Antigua, Montserrat, Jamaica, and Barbados each recognized that an imperial debate over a relatively small tax could stoke broader disorder. The correlation of past slave revolts to imperial change revealed a pattern where any movement of royal troops, display of weakened authority, or unusual gathering could provide the opportunity for rebellion.

Crowd protests largely prevented the payment of the tax on 1 November 1765 closing customs offices and colonial courts, thus suspending legal trade. To avoid paying the required tax, many newspapers closed indefinitely. Enslaved men and women took advantage of the suspension of runaway advertisements as an opportunity to claim their own liberty. This rapid succession of actions by people of color frightened many white colonists. In Charleston, Lieutenant Governor William Bull Jr. warned the South Carolina House of Assembly of an imminent “general insurrection” similar to the 1739 Stono rebellion.³ These actions created, according to planter and merchant Henry Laurens, a “disturbance that . . . gave vast trouble” prompting “patrols” to ride “day & Night for 10 or 14 days” and port residents to become “Soldiers in Arms.”⁴ The royal government banned the traditional firing of guns on Christmas Eve for fear that the celebratory sounds could hide a real alarm or excite panic of a slave revolt. To recapture the estimated 107 recently escaped slaves, the Assembly voted to hire Catawba Indians to search the swamps and allotted £200 sterling to be paid to the owners of any slaves killed in the process. From the first moments of imperial protests, it was clear that the enslaved community would exploit political divisions to gain their freedom. To protesting whites, the choices of free and enslaved people of color suddenly threatened to topple plantation society, a fate far worse than paying a small tax.

Fearful of a revolt originating from a maroon encampment along the Savannah River, the royal governments of Georgia and South Carolina turned for assistance to another group of British subjects infamous for mobbing: itinerant sailors. Often accused of inciting violence and property destruction, ‘Jack Tar’ sailors were central participants in the protest movement against the Stamp Act. Blue water sailors were critical as vectors of information and reliable bodies for a crowd.⁵ Writing to his superiors in London, Lieutenant Governor Bull blamed the spreading protests on the illegitimate “giddy minded” mob, emphasizing the presence of “disorderly negroes, and more disorderly sailors.”⁶ Itinerant sailors proved a convenient group to blame for local disorders, allowing a community to avoid responsibility for any seditious activities. In light of the rumored slave revolt, Bull abandoned his past criticisms ordering ship captains in Charleston harbor to prepare crewmen to assist the town in case of emergency. Sailors were requested to be kept aboard vessels in the harbor in case events necessitated their quick response to suppress a slave uprising. The Lieutenant Governor calculated this action had a second benefit – removing from the streets of town potential Jack Tar protestors. To bolster this display of force, one hundred guns were allocated to arm willing crews. The divisions over the tax now appeared much less important than unifying against the threat of slave insurrection.

The suspension of trade due to non-payment of the tax similarly worried colonists fearful of labor unrest. In Charleston, where customs clearances largely suspended trade from 1 November to 2 February, the number of sailors in town grew to nearly 1,400, outnumbering the resident white male population by an estimated 100–200 people. This demographic imbalance raised the concern of many port residents. The presence of economically desperate itinerant sailors could stoke unrest, but also could compete with the pay of dockworkers by lowering daily rates with a glut of cheap labor. Anxiety about the economic impact of a prolonged port closure resonated across the port community, impacting the growth of the protest movement.

The possibility of slave uprising motivated the payment of the stamp tax in Bridgetown, Barbados. Defending their choice not to join the protest movement, Barbados Assemblyman Reverend Kenneth Morrison explained “to resist one Evil, with not only the Hazard, but the Certainty, of bringing down more and greater Evils on our Heads,” would be “both absurd and frantick.”⁷ Instead, Morrison and other Barbadian colonists insisted on colonists operating through traditional avenues of influence, performing their duty to pay taxes while advocating for their political rights. Similarly, memories of Tacky’s Rebellion of 1760 stimulated colonists in Port Royal Jamaica to pay the stamp tax. Jamaican slaveholders recognized the capacity of slaves to capitalize on even the slightest change in imperial operations to wage war.⁸ The arrival of news of the actions and choices of free and enslaved people in South Carolina and Georgia confirmed the fears of many slaveholders about the dangerous consequences of street protests.

Discourses and Fictions

Sailors and people of color became principle subjects in an imperial debate over the legit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction: They Were Warned, and Yet They Persisted
• Part I Obnoxious, Disorderly, and Defiant: Reaction and Counterreaction
• Part II The Rhetoric of Protest: The Imbrication of Literature and Social Protest
• Part III Taxes, Tariffs, and Trade Wars: Resisting Unpopular Policies
• Part IV Images, Oaths, and Hell: Symbolic Acts of Popular Dissidence
• References
• List of Contributors
• Index