Tar and Feathers at Charleston, South Carolina
As I’ve mentioned before, some people who didn’t support the Revolution were intimidated and pressured in order to get them to support it. Sometimes this was done by publishing their names as “enemies of American liberty” and telling people to cut off all dealings with them. Other times it was done more violently, such as by tarring and feathering — that is, coating someone with hot tar (which was not only painful, but hard to clean off), pouring feathers on them to make them look ridiculous, and carting them around town for everyone to see. Not exactly pleasant.
Peter Timothy, Secretary of the South Carolina Council of Safety (which was basically a sort of Revolutionary government), wrote about how George Walker, the gunner of the British fort near Charleston, was tarred and feathered on August 12th:
Yesterday Evening the Gunner of Fort Johnson (one Walker) had a decent Tarring & Feathering for some insolent speech he had made: there is hardly a street through which he was not paraded nor a Tory house where they did not halt, particularly Innes’s, Simpson’s, Wregg’s, Milligan’s, Irving’s &c &c At Fen Bull’s they stopt, call’d for Grog; had it; made Walker drink D——-n to Bull, threw a bag of feathers into his Balcony, & desired he would take care of it ’till his turn came; & that he would charge the Grog to the Acct [account] of Ld [Lord] North, finally the wretch was discharged at Milligan’s door.
Some of the other pro-British people in town certainly had reason to worry that they might have their turn soon. One of them, Dr. George Milligan, who was a member of the Royal Council of the colony, even left town during the next week or two, to be safe at the fort or on a British warship in the harbor. As Arthur Middleton, a member of the Council of Safety, put it, “probably he had an unconquerable Dislike to the mode of Cloathing lately adopted in these scarce times…”
Notes
What was a Tory? The opposite of a Whig (and you know what that is, right?). Both terms were used in Britain long before the American Revolution, to refer to people of differing political beliefs. During the Revolution, says Webster’s 1828 dictionary, “those who opposed the war, and favored the claims of Great Britain, were called tories” or royalists, while “the friends and supporters of the war and the principles of the revolution, were called whigs”.
Some more information about some of the people mentioned in the letter: Alexander Innes was secretary to Lord William Campbell, the governor of South Carolina. James Simpson was the clerk of the Royal Council. Dr. George Milligan was a member of the Royal Council. Thomas Irving was a member of the Royal Council and the Receiver General (whatever that is) of the colony. Lord North was the Prime Minister of Britain.
Source
Naval Documents of the American Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 1107-8 and 1135; also see p. 1185.