What roles did Thomas Jefferson's comittee of correspondence play in the Boston Tea Party?

Question

History Help!

Answer 1

Short answer --
This committee took a lead in co-ordinating the tea boycott (in response the Tea Act), which led to the Boston Tea Party. Afterward, when Parliament punished Boston, this committee helped push for a co-ordinated response (carried out by the First Continental Congress)
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Here's more of the story of this committee (and its cousins) and the Boston Tea Party, and how the two worked together:

I'm not sure it should be called "Jefferson's" committee (he did not chair it, and though he wrote the proposal, the idea was apparently Richard Henry Lee's). At any rate here's what happened:

A group from the Virginia House of Burgesses met at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg March 4, Jefferson among them.

On March 12 his friend Dabney Carr presented their proposal to the Burgesses -- to form a STANDING "Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry" to co-ordinate with OTHER colonies. The proposal was accepted, and an 11-member committee chosen (including Jefferson).

They called on other colonies to form similar committees, to co-ordinate their efforts. (LOCAL committees of this sort, appointed on a TEMPORARY ad hoc basis, had been established many times in the previous decade in several colonies, esp. in Massachusetts.)

story of the formation of Virginia's standing "Committee of Correspondence and Inquiry"
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/fall98/lastdays.html

text of the March 12 resolution
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/amerrev/amerdocs/va_res_corres_1773.htm

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Actions leading up to the Tea Party

The Virginia Committee worked with merchant John Norton (a colonist stationed in England), and from him received intelligence about Parliament's Tea Act. They then worked with committees from the other colonies to arrange an all-colonies BOYCOTT of the tea.

Part of the plan was that the colonists would not allow to be unloaded, but would pressure the ships to sail away with the tea, in an effort to pressure Parliament to rescind the Tea Act. This involved the major port cities of New York, Philadelphia, Charlestown SC, and Boston. Note that the plan did NOT include any dumping/destroying of tea.

(This effort was actually much like earlier boycotts by the colonies, such as the successful Stamp Act boycott. And in most places it seemed to work -- NY and Philadelphia turned back the ships, Charlestown only allowed the tea to be warehoused, NOT distributed. But in Boston, Governor Hutchinson REFUSED to let the ships leave the harbor, and a quirk in the law REQUIRED th payment of the duty in any case after 20 days --due to end at midnight December 16. It is THESE circumstances that led to the "Tea Party".)


"After the Party"

As a result of the Boston Tea Party, an angered Parliament legislated the punitive "Coercive Acts" (cubbed "the Intolerable Acts" by the colonists), which began by closing Boston Harbor... Once again, the Committees of Correspondence sprang into action, advocating an all colony congress, the "First Continental Congress", which met in October 1774 to discuss a response to the Intolerable Acts. (They agreed on a two-stage complete boycott, unless Parliament rescinded these acts.)


co-ordination of efforts among the colonies, including the tea boycott
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/c-eight/america/amnorth.htm
http://www.homeofheroes.com/hallofheroes/1st_floor/birth/1bc6ab.html

For a more detailed account of the boycott leading to the Tea Party, see the three-page article beginning here:
http://www.boston-tea-party.org/economic-causes.html
and Thomas Fleming, *Liberty*, pp. 75-9.

And for the whole story of the Tea Party itself, and its aftermath -
http://www.boston-tea-party.org/in-depth.html

Answer 2

Thomas Jefferson and the Committee of Correspondence came AFTER the Boston Tea Party.

Answer 3

First, Thomas Jefferson was one of our founding fathers. These men who spoke about "we the people" and the rights of the individual did a very interesting thing that most of us don't know (or don't want to know). When we became a free nation after 1784, our founding fathers were now in charge. They now had to pay for the Revolution. These founding fathers decided that they would tax those who made whiskey. Being fair and upright, they also decided that the bigger the producer of alcohol the less the tax would be on a gallon. Oh, I forgot to tell you, President George Washington was at the time one of the biggest producers of whiskey. Anyway, the people were outraged because of this sudden and unfair tax (Whiskey Rebellion). Guess what our founding fathers did....they sent in the troops and crushed the rebellion. Sooo....maybe power corrupts?

Answer 4

i think thomas jefferson was the leader of the sons and daughters of liberty... maybe?