Patriots in Petticoats: How Ladies Boycotting British Tea Aided the American Revolutionary Cause

Inspired by the Boston Tea Party, the Edenton women met and signed a document formally protesting Britain’s taxation without representation. (Biba Kayewich for American Essence）

The idiom “tempest in a teapot” means making a big deal out of some trifling problem or event. On October 25, 1774, in Edenton, North Carolina, 51 women turned that definition on its head. From their teapots came a storm that helped create the United States.

Under the leadership of Penelope Pagett Barker (1728–1796), and inspired by the Boston Tea Party the previous December, the Edenton women met at the home of Elizabeth King, where they signed a document formally protesting Britain’s taxation without representation. They pledged “not to drink any more tea, nor wear any more British cloth.” They further declared that they “have determined to give a memorable proof of their patriotism, and have accordingly entered into the following honourable and spirited association.”

News of this female protest soon reached England and brought immediate scorn and howls of laughter. In January 1775, in a letter from London to his brother James, an Edenton attorney who later served on the first U.S. Supreme Court, Arthur Iredell mocked the “Edenton ladies,” wondering whether this “female artillery” included any relatives of his sister-in-law. “We Englishmen,” he sneered,

are afraid of the male congress, but if the ladies, who have ever since the Amazonian era been esteemed the most formidable enemies, if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequence is to be dreaded. So dexterous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal; whilst we, so unhappily formed by nature, the more we strive to conquer them, the more we are conquered.

Six weeks later, a London paper featured a scathing cartoon by Philip Dawe depicting some of the women signing the document at a table while others gathered round a punch bowl. The artist gave these females masculine features and portrayed them as a confused and somewhat debauched rabble who had no idea what they were doing.

London had its laugh, but the patriots in petticoats would laugh last.

The house of patriot Elizabeth King where the Edenton women formally signed a document protesting Britain’s taxation without representation. A drawing from “The Historic Tea Party of Edenton” by Richard Dillard, October 25, 1774. Library of Congress. Public Domain

A Formidable Leader

The organizer of this protest, Penelope Barker, was a force to be reckoned with in the bustling Colonial town of Edenton. An early historian of the event, Richard Dillard, wrote of her, “She was one of those lofty, intrepid, high-born women peculiarly fitted by nature to lead; fear formed no part of her composition. … She was a brilliant conversationalist, and a society leader of her day.”

Barker demonstrated these qualities early in her life. At age 17, she took responsibility for her deceased sister’s three children and soon married her sister’s husband, John Hodgson. Two years later, when she was carrying their second child, Hodgson died. Barker would marry and bury two more husbands, and only one of the nine children to whom she had given birth or taken into her household through marriage outlived her.

Despite her personal tragedies, Barker was a shrewd businesswoman. Blessed by the inheritance left her by her second husband, she became one of the richest women in the Colonies. From 1761 until 1778, while her third husband Thomas Barker was in England as a representative of the Colonies, she had charge of the family’s affairs and succeeded admirably in maintaining their status and wealth.

A portrait of Mrs. Penelope Barker, President of the Edenton Tea Party, from “The Historic Tea Party of Edenton” by Richard Dillard, October 25, 1774. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Likely because of Thomas’s involvement in politics, Barker also took an active interest in the events leading toward the confrontation with Great Britain. When in 1774 the First Continental Congress issued a plea for the colonialists to refuse British goods, she helped lead that protest. The women whom she gathered together that October day and who fixed their signatures to a public statement swore off English tea, substituting instead herbs from the garden or woodlands, and exchanged the fine dresses shipped from England for homespun clothing. Barker noted:

Maybe it has only been men who have protested the king up to now. That only means we women have taken too long to let our voices be heard. We are signing our names to a document, not hiding ourselves behind costumes like the men in Boston did at their tea party. The British will know who we are.

Despite that derisive hooting from the mother country, many other American women joined the boycott proposed by the Edenton ladies. Here we should remember that abstaining from tea was no small sacrifice. The beverage was a staple in many households, and the homemade substitutions generally tasted awful in comparison to the real teas obtained from England.

And though the pen may be mightier than the sword, Barker ably wielded both. During the war, when a servant brought her word that British soldiers were taking horses from the stable, Barker snatched her husband’s sword from the wall, ran outside, sliced the reins of a horse being led away by a soldier, and led the horse back to the stable. The officer in charge was so impressed by her courage that he returned the other horses to her and ordered his men to leave Barker’s property unmolested.

The English cartoonist Philip Dawe’s satire of the Edenton women’s boycott. “A Society of Patriotic Ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina” published by R. Sayer & J. Bennett on March 25, 1775. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Fervent to Their Cause

Today we remember and honor women of the American Revolution like the politically astute Abigail Adams, who so often offered wise counsel to her husband. Most remember Martha Washington’s steadfast loyalty to George, and some may recollect the legendary “Mollie Pitcher,” usually identified as Mary Hays who brought water to the wounded during the Battle of Monmouth and who serviced a cannon in her husband’s stead when he was wounded.

Penelope Barker and the women of the Edenton Tea Party belong in this company as well. Not only did they strike a blow for American liberty, but their Tea Party is acknowledged as “the first recorded women’s political demonstration in what would become the United States of America.”

Their protest should also remind us that many other women were equally fervent in their support for the American cause. Like most of the soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War, the identities of these women, if known at all, are familiar only to their descendants, and yet they played a special part in this drama of liberty. These mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters—all of them were as fervent in their patriotism as the men around them, and sometimes more so.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.