Journal Entry: Following the Boston Tea Party . . .

[Journal Entry written by an anonymous participant following the "Boston Tea Party."]

December 16, 1773

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so alive as I did tonight.  As we painted our faces black, donned feathers, and wrapped our blankets, I felt a sense of excitement and danger which I’ve never felt before.  My mind went blank and I felt a freedom from all the expectations that Hutchinson and all those who would like to leave us men out of control of our destinies.  As we rushed down the street taking up the spirit of those children of the forest, I became one of them, I can see why they do and act as they do.  While avoiding civilization and those norms of society we know, they become free.  If only I could live as tonight – Mohawk by day and myself by night, I could imagine a sense of me which I have always desired.  I long for the luxuries of our food and lifestyle, and I know I could not live with those savage ways we know of them, but being able to live as they do without worry or obligation, free to do anything one desires, that’s the freedom I can only dream of.  It scares me that it is so easy for me to turn into one of “them,” and that is feels so good to scream and act with a sense of precarious insanity.  I know the feeling of rebellion as it runs through my veins, and I long for our next adventure, watch out Boston, we will continue to let tea run like the blood the savages let loose as long as things stay as they are.  The Mohawks await your slights and oppressions . . .

“. . . and Indian Others were clearly being included on the inside of the American boundaries the members sought to create. Along with the positives and negatives of the noble savage, then, we need to consider the distinction between Indian Others imagined to be interior – inside the nation or the society – and those who are to be excluded as exterior.  The matter can get extremely complicated, for both interior and exterior Others can take on positive or negative qualities, depending on the nature of the identity construction in which they appear” (p.21).