“An otherwise patriotic merchant, Thomas Boylston, had tried to drive up the price of coffee and sugar by keeping them off the market. On July 24, 1777, a horde of angry women confronted him, demanding he charge a reasonable price for coffee.
He refused. Wrote Abigail, “a number of females, some say a hundred, some say more, assembled with a cart and trucks, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded the keys, which he refused to deliver.” When Boylston stood up to the women, “one of them seized him by his neck and tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding no quarter, he delivered the keys, when they tipped up the cart and discharged him, then opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it into the trucks and drove off.”
What, the 35th anniversary of nothing at all happening on Tienanmen Square?
(The other day I read about the CCP Propaganda Department having to brief new recruits on the events that, according to the CCP Propaganda Department, didn’t happen in 1989 so that they’d know what to censor. What must not be true can’t be true.)
I share your doubts about how women viewed this “custom.” Based on the time period, I’m also wondering what church officials had to say about this practice. That wasn’t mentioned at all.
For a lot of them, it was ethnic cleansing. If they were beaten, tortured, or had their property confiscated or burned, many chose to move north to Canada and start over. Their families formed the nucleus of the settlement of what is now southern Ontario, and their descendants still proudly claim United Empire Loyalist heritage.
I can recommend this book.
Former Black slaves were promised their freedom if they fought for or supported the British, and many took advantage of free passage to Nova Scotia after the British surrendered.
