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

       www.upenn.edu/pennpress

      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

       List of Figures

       Introduction. Franklin’s Footnote

       PART I. ATTACKING AUTHORITARIANISM

       Chapter 1. The Rages of Francis Nicholson

       Chapter 2. The Treasons of Thomas Nairne

       PART II. LEARNING TO LEAD

       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

       Notes

       Index

       Acknowledgments

      FIGURES

       1. Benjamin Franklin, c. 1746

       2. James Blair, 1705

       3. Original Building of the College of William and Mary, 1705

       4. Sarah Harrison Blair, 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,