{"id":31269,"date":"2023-12-08T15:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T14:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=90049"},"modified":"2023-12-09T09:11:39","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T08:11:39","slug":"george-robert-twelves-hewes-the-shoemaker-who-became-a-patriot","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/george-robert-twelves-hewes-the-shoemaker-who-became-a-patriot\/","title":{"rendered":"George Robert Twelves Hewes: the shoemaker who became a patriot"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the wintry evening of 16 December 1773, a Boston shoemaker stood up against British oppression and became a patriot <\/p>

By Amir Adhamy\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 08 December 2023 at 14:00 PM<\/p>

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Having hastily disguised themselves as Mohawk Native Americans \u2013 using coal dust to darken their skin and wearing feathers in their hair \u2013 a band of American patriots marched to Boston Harbor. On that cold evening of 16 December 1773, they climbed aboard three British ships docked there, calmly subdued the crews and dumped all 342 chests of tea from the holds into the water.<\/p>\n

Causing \u00a318,000 in losses (over a million dollars today), the Boston Tea Party<\/a>\u00a0was an audacious protest against British taxes imposed on the American colonies. It was also one of three defining events to occur in Boston in the prelude to the American Revolutionary War<\/a>, along with an event dubbed a massacre, and brutal act of tarring-and-feathering. And one man was at the centre of all of them\u2026<\/p>\n

Who was George Robert Twelves Hewes?<\/h2>\n
George Robert Twelves Hewes, born to a large Bostonian family in 1742, was always poor. Since being apprenticed to a shoemaker at the age of 14, Hewes remained in that lowly profession his whole life \u2013 his efforts to escape in his youth by enlisting in the army were thwarted by his short stature, standing at 5\u20191\u2019\u2019. So he bought his own shop, where he struggled to support his wife, Sally, and growing family, sonmuch so that he spent time in debtors\u2019 prison. Despite his personal trials, however, Hewes couldn\u2019t ignore Boston\u2019s volatile political climate for long.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts town had long been a hotbed of resentment against British taxation, with tensions flaring between colonists and the several thousand British soldiers stationed there.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hewes and the Boston Massacre<\/h2>\n
Tensions came to a head on 5 March 1770, when a mostly unarmed mob, including Hewes in its number, was fired upon outside Boston\u2019s Customs House. The scene on a snowy Kings Street was chaos, with five people fatally shot.<\/p>\n
Hewes, who sustained an injury to the shoulder by being hit with the butt of a gun, was standing next to James Caldwell when he was killed and caught his body as it fell. The events of that night were labelled the \u2018Boston Massacre\u2019, and were recounted countless times as a powerful anti-British propaganda tool.<\/p>\n
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Involvement in the Boston Tea Party<\/h2>\n
From then, Hewes was a devoted member of the Patriot movement, so was an eager volunteer for the Tea Party nearly four years later.<\/p>\n
The 60 or so men involved were split into three boarding crews, one for each ship, and Hewes\u2019 loyalty \u2013 or \u201cwhistling talent\u201d as he claimed \u2013 was rewarded with his appointment to \u2018boatswain\u2019 (a de facto officer) of the party on the Dartmouth<\/em>. It was Hewes who demanded the keys from the ship\u2019s captain and supervised the dumping. He even reprimanded a fellow Patriot caught trying to smuggle tea in his coat.<\/p>\n
A member of his party later praised Hewes\u2019s leadership by declaring, \u201cIn the heat of conflict, the small man with the large name had been elevated from a poor shoemaker to Captain Hewes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not long after the destruction of the tea, Hewes was, again, a central character in a major political and widely publicised incident in Boston. In January 1774, Hewes witnessed customs official John Malcolm (a much hated Bostonian and staunch Loyalist) threatening a young boy with his cane. When Hewes intervened, Malcolm struck him instead and \u201cwounded him deeply on the forehead\u201d. Hewes had a scar the rest of his life. \u201cThe attack was reported and, that same night, Malcolm was dragged from his house, stripped, then tarred and feathered.<\/p>\n
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