“A score of Indian figures were at work”

In 1836, the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge published the picture above and an article called “The Boston Tea Party.”

That magazine was edited by Nathaniel Hawthorne, but we don’t know who wrote this piece. The author did disclaim knowledge of “Mr. Thacher’s lecture on the same subject,” which rules out Benjamin Bussey Thacher, author of Traits of the Tea Party.

I discussed this article in yesterday’s presentation about the shifting significance of the Indian disguises that some men wore to destroy the tea, two hundred fifty years ago this week.

Just check out this rhetoric from a period well after those perpetrators’ identities had to be hidden, and at a time the U.S. of A. was expanding west and shoving real Native Americans away.

The story picks up as Francis Rotch reports that Gov. Thomas Hutchinson wouldn’t bend the rules to allow the Dartmouth to sail away without unloading the tea.

But the dead hush, that pervaded the multitude after hearing the Governour’s resolve, was suddenly broken by what seemed an Indian war-cry from the gallery. Thitherward all raised their eyes, and perceived a figure in the garb of the old forest-chiefs, who had not then been so long banished from their ancient haunts, but that a solitary survivor might have found his way into the church.

The signal shout was immediately responded by twenty voices in the street. That loud, wild cry of a departed race must have pealed ominously in the ears of the ministerial party, as if the unnatural calmness of the mob were at length flung away, and savage violence were now to rush madly through the town.

By the people, such a signal appears to have been expected. No sooner was it given, than they sallied forth, and made their way towards the tea-ships with continually increasing numbers, so that the wharves were blackened with the multitude.

Already, when the crowd reached the spot, a score of Indian figures were at work aboard the vessels, heaving up the tea-chests from the holds, tearing off the lids, and scattering their precious contents on the tide. But it was the people’s deed, they had all a part in it; for they kept watch while their champions wrought, and presented an impenetrable bulwark against disturbance on the landward side. . . .

Having done their work, the Indian figures vanished, and the crowd, with a thrill, as if ghosts had walked among them, asked whither they had gone, and who those bold men were. . . .

We will not strive to wipe away the war-paint, nor remove the Indian robe and feathery crest, and show what features of the Renowned were hid beneath—what shapes were in that garb, of men who afterwards rode leaders in the battle-field—or became the people’s chosen rulers, when Britain had sullenly left our land to its freedom.

How many times did this author use the Vanishing Indian trope?

• “the old forest-chiefs”
• “banished from their ancient haunts”
• “solitary survivor”
• “wild cry of a departed race”
• “the Indian figures vanished”

And you can’t get more Vanishing Indian than “the Indian figures vanished,” can you?