What was the purpose of the Edenton Tea Party?

Led by Penelope Barker, the all-woman Edenton Tea Party (October 25, 1774) illustrated the influence of women in the colonies, and their support against exploitation of the American colonies by England.

It followed the better known Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773.

Realistically, what is now called the Edenton Tea Party did not get that name until decades after the event. What happened in 1774 was far more significant in the colonies, as well as in Europe. Until Penelope Barker and her friends took their action. women simply did not engage in political discourse here or abroad.

Penelope Barker was one of the richest women in the colony now known as North Carolina. Where the men at Boston wore costumes and face paint to hid their identity, the women at Edenton met for the purpose of sending the King a clear and strong message and had the courage to actually sign their names to the petition they produced. It is not known it they actually had tea, but it is believed that they did not throw any into the Albemarle Sound.

When their petition arrived in England, it created such a stir that London's cartoonists used it as fodder for ridicule. A copy of one such cartoon now hangs in the Barker House in Edenton.

Barker was not alone as a significant player in the colonies demanding independence from England. The Edenton Historical Commission maintains a web site that quotes from their petition and lists the names of signers. (see related link)

So the Edenton Tea Party was not really a tea party, it was the launching of woman's political liberation.