20. Penelope Barker and the Edenton Tea Party protested the British Tea Tax in 1774
The Edenton Tea Party did not mimic its northern counterpart in Boston. No men boarded ships disguised as Indians, no tea was destroyed. Instead, a group of women calling themselves the Edenton Tea Party signed a petition announcing their boycott of British tea, and the “wear of any manufacturer from England” (imported clothing). There were 50 women, plus their organizer and de facto leader, Penelope Barker. Penelope is alleged to have said at the time: “We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are”. The document appeared in British newspapers in January, 1775.
London reacted to the women’s act of rebellion with sneering derision for the most part. Political cartoons satirized both the announced boycott and the women themselves. Penelope Barker placed herself at considerable peril with her public denunciation of British authority. She risked her wealth (she was the wealthiest woman in North Carolina at the time), as well as her safety. North Carolina held one of the largest concentrations of Loyalist sentiment in the colonies. During the Revolution, it devolved into near civil war. The Edenton Tea Party, forgotten in public memory, presented one of the earliest examples of an organized women’s protest and boycott in American history.