Tea Sets and Tyranny. Steven C. Bullock
Tea Sets and Tyranny
EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES
Series editors: Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher
Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial,
revolutionary, and early national history and culture,
Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes
and events in fresh ways. Interdisciplinary in character,
and with a special emphasis on the period from about
1600 to 1850, the series is published in partnership with
the McNeil Center for Early American Studies.
A complete list of books in the series
is available from the publisher.
Tea Sets and Tyranny
The Politics of Politeness in Early America
Steven C. Bullock
PENN
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104–4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-8122-4860-9
In memory of my mother, who loved books and loved me
CONTENTS
Introduction. Franklin’s Footnote
PART I. ATTACKING AUTHORITARIANISM
Chapter 1. The Rages of Francis Nicholson
Chapter 2. The Treasons of Thomas Nairne
Chapter 3. The Histories of the Line
Chapter 4. The Affair of My Picture
PART III. CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS
Chapter 5. A Mumper Among the Gentle
Chapter 6. The Princess and the Pinckneys
Epilogue. The Dissolution of the Politics of Politeness
FIGURES
3. Original Building of the College of William and Mary, 1705
5. Crisp Map of South Carolina, 1711
6. Nairne’s Map (from Crisp Map of South Carolina, 1711)
7. Sir Nathaniel Johnson, 1705
8. Charles Town (from Crisp Map of South Carolina, 1711)
9. William Byrd II, c. mid- 1720s
10. Plat of North Carolina land owned by William Byrd
11. North Carolina Twenty Shilling Note, 1722
12. Jonathan Belcher, 1734
13. Jonathan Belcher, Jr., 1756
14. Burnet family coat-of-arms from Boston Map, 1728 (Detail)
15. The Family of Frederick, Prince of Wales, 1751
16. Charles Pinckney, 1740
17. Silk Dress owned by Eliza Lucas Pinckney, 1750s
18. Hampton Plantation, South Carolina
19. Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington, 1796
Tea Sets and Tyranny
INTRODUCTION
Franklin’s Footnote
Benjamin Franklin was twelve years old when he was apprenticed to his older brother. It was an unpleasant experience. James, himself only twenty-one, was a difficult young man, as headstrong and argumentative as his younger sibling. The memories still rankled a half century later. In the autobiography he began when he was sixty-five, Franklin complained that James had “considered himself as my master,” an odd comment since James had been just that, both by time-honored usage and by the cold realities of law. But Franklin expected more. James, he noted, had been “passionate and had often beaten” him, rather than treating him with “more Indulgence”—as “a Brother.” Franklin eventually found the situation so oppressive that he revolted. Taking advantage of a legal technicality, he fled his brother’s custody at sixteen.1
Almost two decades after writing his original 1770s account,