Tea Sets and Tyranny
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Even as eighteenth-century thinkers from John Locke to Thomas Jefferson struggled to find effective means to restrain power, contemporary discussions of society gave increasing attention to ideals of refinement, moderation, and polished self-presentation. These two sets of ideas have long seemed separate, one dignified as political theory, the other primarily concerned with manners and material culture. Tea Sets and Tyranny challenges that division. In its original context, Steven C. Bullock suggests, politeness also raised important issues of power, leadership, and human relationships. This politics of politeness helped make opposition to overbearing power central to early American thought and practice. Although these views spanned the English Atlantic world, they were particularly significant in America, most notably in helping shape its Revolution. By the end of the eighteenth century, the politics of politeness was already breaking apart, however its ideals continued to be important. Opposition to arbitrary governing became central to American political culture; self-control became a major part of nineteenth-century values, but these ideals increasingly seemed to belong in separate spheres. This division between public power and personal life continues to shape thinking about liberty so fully that it has been difficult to recognize its origins in the eighteenth-century politics of politeness. Tea Sets and Tyranny follows the experiences of six extraordinary individuals, each seeking to establish public authority and personal standing: a cast of characters that includes a Virginia governor consumed by fits of towering rage; a Carolina woman who befriended a British princess; and a former Harvard student who became America's first confidence man.
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Tea Sets and Tyranny
Series editors: Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher
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As Nicholson knew, these difficulties were being carefully watched by imperial officials. Although customs officials like Randolph often proved impervious to criticism, leaders coming under the Board of Trade’s direct control were kept on a tighter leash. The board wrote a scathing letter to Bermuda governor Samuel Day after he jailed Randolph, removing the governor from office soon after he complied.59 Phips suffered a similar fate after news of his attacks on royal officials reached England. In the same March 1705 week that Nicholson wrote his extended justifications, the Board of Trade recommended the removal of a Church of England minister in Newfoundland whose angry outburst had helped set off a mutiny in the garrison; wrote a letter to the lieutenant governor of Bermuda ordering him to live in peace with the formerly disrespectful secretary of the colony; and examined eleven affidavits from Barbados accusing the governor of tyranny and thirty-two documents attempting to refute the charge.60
Nicholson’s opponents in Virginia, however, could find little comfort in this broader context of new demands and problematic governors. They were facing a man who threatened to destroy their reputations, take away their possessions, and even kill them—who would accept nothing less than complete subordination to the sacred will of the queen. Unfortunately, Nicholson understood as little of the larger context of the situation as his opponents. While they failed to recognize the imperial pressures that drove his already authoritarian outlook, Nicholson refused to accept the existence of newly confident colonial elites who refused the status of mere subjects—and now had the strength to resist their governor’s demands.
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