E Pluribus Unum
As you enjoy your glass of iced tea on these hot summer days, kindly remember that it was that very common drink that finally pushed the 13 colonies over the edge when yet another tax was added to their burden, the Tea Act.
On the cold, moonless night Boston Harbor, December 16, 1773, the British-owned East India ships loaded with crates of tea were attacked by 18 members of an underground militia group representing the colonists, the Sons of Liberty. As they poured the tea into Boston Harbor, they screamed words that fired what would become the American Revolution, “No Taxation Without Representation.”
Here we are just shy of 250 years celebrating one more time, the victory won by thousands of volunteers, farmers, shopkeepers, young teenagers, with makeshift weapons alongside foreign soldiers of our allies against British rule.
An unlikely battle on a bridge near Concord, Massachusetts, British Red Coats formally trained with advanced weaponry faced an estimated 1,500 colonists, the Minutemen, protecting what weapons they had gathered in preparation. The date was April 19th, now celebrated as Patriot Day.
To this day, in Boston, in the middle of the night, thousands gather along the route from Old North Church to Concord to cheer riders who represent those riders who rode out into the darkness to alert colonists prepared to meet the British. “One if by land, Two if by Sea.”
On the 4th of July, 1776, members of the Congressional Congress gathered to sign the handwritten Declaration of Independence knowing that their signature on this document was Treasonous, punishable by death. By that evening, the first printed versions were being distributed in Philadelphia, known as the Dunlap Broadsides, meaning the printer, Dunlap, typeset the 1,337 words and made large posters. Soon after the Declaration was printed in newspapers throughout the 13 colonies.
The original Declaration fading with some parts unreadable resides at the National Archives under thick glass in a darkened rotunda. “E Pluribus Unum,” Out of Many, One.