There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!
According to colonial records, this is what John Hancock said as he signed his name to America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Hancock is still famous today for his big, elegant signature. We still use his name and “signature” interchangeably.
But there’s a great deal about Hancock that modern history books gloss over. Since we’re talking all things American Independence this week, let’s go over Hancock’s story today. Consider it a smuggler’s guide to the American Revolution.
In colonial New England, Hancock was well-known as a cost-competitive wholesaler. He would source hard-to-find products and offer them for sale in Boston at a reasonable price.
One of Hancock’s most popular products was tea. That made him a direct competitor to the British East India Company. And the Company did not at all like competition.
The East India Company formed in 1600. That’s when it received a royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I.
The East India Company started as a trading venture. It sought to import spices, silk, and other exotic goods from the East Indies.
Over time the Company became both political and militarized. The East India Company raised its own private army. And it often engaged in military conflicts abroad. It’s safe to say that Britain’s global empire would not have been so expansive if not for the East India Company.
But there was a trade-off.
By the 1760’s, the East India Company’s overhead was vast. It had to pay a large standing army month after month. Doing so required a steady stream of revenues. That’s why the Company took exception to John Hancock’s wholesale operation in America.
At first the East India Company launched a campaign to paint Hancock as a dangerous smuggler. This is typical of incumbents in any industry. They often smear upstart competitors to scare consumers away from them.
And the East India Company’s attack on Hancock’s reputation appeared to work at first. Hancock was tried in court as a smuggler in 1768. But the jury found him not guilty. It’s said that his defense attorney, John Adams, was one of the best in the land.
This prompted the East India Company to shift gears. By 1773 it had adopted a new strategy to take out John Hancock. Undercut him.
First, the Company lobbied Parliament to reduce its import taxes on tea. At the same time, Parliament passed the Tea Act. It granted the East India Company favorable treatment for tea imports in the American colonies. And it retained a heavy import duty that made it expensive for merchants like John Hancock to get tea.
So the Tea Act reduced the East India Company’s tax burden dramatically while it also imposed heavy burdens on colonial competitors. In effect, this granted the East India Company a pseudo-monopoly on tea sales in America.
Once the Tea Act passed, the East India Company slashed its prices to rock-bottom levels. Hancock simply couldn’t compete. They stacked the deck against him.
But Hancock didn’t sit idle. Along with Sam Adams, he arranged a closed-door meeting for the Sons of Liberty in Boston’s Green Dragon Tavern. The tavern became known as the “Headquarters of the Revolution”.
Meeting in the Green Dragon Tavern, Adams, Hancock, and the Sons of Liberty hatched a plan to fight back. That plan was the Boston Tea Party. They snuck into the harbor under the cover of night and boarded three British ships. Then they dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.
That prompted Parliament to order the harbor closed… and tensions rose. And this set the stage for what we could only view as competing marketing campaigns.
The East India Company began promoting a new slogan. “Lower taxes. Lower prices.” They tried to position their cheap tea as a benefit to American colonists.
But at the same time, King George III responded to the Boston Tea Party with a heavy-fist. He ordered more British troops sent to the colonies. And he supported a series of laws called the Coercive Acts. They were designed to punish the colonists and bring them under tighter British control.
Meanwhile, the Sons of Liberty adopted the slogan “no taxation without representation”. And they helped disseminate revolutionary literature throughout the colonies. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was the most popular of this literature.
Paine published Common Sense at around the same time as Britain passed the Coercive Acts. It was the perfect contrast… and that helped feed its success.
It’s estimated that over 500,000 copies of Common Sense sold after it was published. That would be an incredible feat even today. Very few books sell that many copies.
And get this – there were only about 2.5 million American colonists in the 1770s. That means roughly 20% of the population read Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet. That makes Common Sense the single best-selling book of all time when it comes to market penetration.
Of course, Paine’s pamphlet also won many colonists over to the cause of American Independence. It’s safe to say that far fewer colonists would have supported the revolution had they not read Common Sense.
And it’s a good bet the book would have sold far fewer copies if it didn’t come out at just the right time. Its contrast with the Coercive Acts drove sales.
That’s the smuggler’s guide to the American Revolution.
And it all goes back to a battle over tea market share. The alleged smuggler John Hancock versus the East India Company.
The events played upon each other perfectly. They were like dominoes cascading in an elaborate pattern. I find this amazing to think about.
To me, this speaks to the fact that ideas are one of the most powerful forces on Earth.
As Napoleon Hill pointed out decades ago, thoughts are things. They are energy.
And if we hold a singular thought in our mind day after day… something happens. Our subconscious mind works to figure out how to manifest our thought. Almost like magic.
That’s why ideas run the world…
-Joe Withrow
P.S. For those who find historical events and figures like this interesting, I would highly recommend Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom. Tom’s program provides a world-class education on history from many different angles.
If you would like to review Liberty Classroom’s course listings, just go right here: Tom Woods Liberty Classroom Course Listing