Actual American History, vs. American History according to Republicans

I recently finished reading the book, Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara. This book was a fictional but historically accurate account of the American Revolution from 1770 to the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776. It was only fictional in that the author imagined dialog between all the characters involved, but otherwise stuck to the historical facts and written records of the time.

I can not say for certain who accurate the all the dialog of the story, or even each persons intentions actually are, but the book gives an excellent portrayal of what the mostly likely intentions of the fathers of the revolution was.

With that said this book really is eye opening about the total disregard for actual American history for the sake of current political gain. Mostly I am talking about the Tea Party.

When I was a boy in school we were taught about the Boston Tea Party in the same paragraph of our text books as the phrase, "No taxation without representation." The reality is that far more then one sentence separated those two events. The colonies had actually stopped calls of no taxation long before the Boston Tea Party. In fact after the Stamp Act had been defeated the calls of no taxation ended until the Townshend Act was enacted and then repealed. The time between, "No taxation." and the Boston Tea Party? Around 10 years!

It is also worth noting that England did away with both the Stamp Act and The Townshend, not because of colonial pressure but mostly because the costs of collecting the taxes would be greater than what the taxes would bring in. Also true is that Parliment and King George were only attemping to recover the cost of the French and Indian War which granted the colonies peace and safety along the Indian frontier.

But back to the tea party.

The Boston Tea Party had nothing to do with taxes. It had everything to do with government enforced corporate control over consumer goods, out sourcing, and trade deficits. The tea tax was a left over of the Townshend Act that was left in tact while all the rest of the act was repealed. No one cared about it until Boston because smugglers did quite well bringing in tea through the black market and avoiding the tea tax.

Then the king hears wind that the East India Company is on hard times and decides that he will have British tea sent directly to the colonies through the East India Company with no middle men. The result they expected would be cheaper tea prices in the colonies, compliance with the tea tax (which would still of allowed the tea to be sold below black market prices), and rebuilding the British Treasury.

The colonies refusal to comply was all because they did not agree with a policy that was in effect a government mandated monopoly on a commodity. The tax was not the issue. The tea was subsequently dumped in to Boston Harbor to prevent the British Army from forcibly unloading the tea which the Royal Governor of Massachusetts had given orders to do the following day.

I hope others can see how these facts fly in the face of the history others would have you believe, because I have been noticing how our history is being rewritten to fit a certain political view point, and that is a frightening Orwellian idea.