Last week my wife and I spent the week in Boston, finally completing a trip we had originally planned to take at the beginning of the pandemic. The city greatly exceeded our expectations, particularly because of its easy walkability and the vast amount of parks, gardens, and greenscapes, like the Public Garden and Arnold Arboretum.

The highlight for me, though, as a history nerd whose interest in the early American period has been rekindled by Hamilton, was basking in Boston’s revolutionary past. I took particular joy in climbing Bunker Hill, seeing the famous Gilbert Stuart portraits of George and Martha Washington at the Museum of Fine Arts, and eating cannoli in the public square across from Paul Revere’s house in the North End. 

Even so, I went into the trip with some resolve to temper my excitement against the patriotic pomp I knew would be on full display at the Freedom Trail sites. My attitude in this regard stemmed from a conversation I had with a Chinese friend prior to leaving for Boston. 

She mentioned that in middle school she had learned about the “tea dumping” incident in Boston, and she asked me, “In English, is it called the Destruction of Tea in Boston?”

I laughed, not poking fun at her suggested appellation, but because her phrase much more accurately captured what happened at the Boston Tea Party. I am sure the word party, after all, carries a drastically different connotation from the British perspective. We then discussed how Americans love to valorize their history, and thus how party truly is a fitting word, evoking harmless revelry and heroism while downplaying the criminal nature of dumping another’s property into the sea.

A related event with a similarly charitable title is the Boston Massacre. While in the city, we stopped by the street marker that commemorates where the bloodshed took place, as well as located the tombstone in the Granary Burial Ground that honors the five colonial Americans who lost their lives. Unlike the version of the event made famous by Paul Revere’s propagandistic engraving, which erroneously displays British troops shooting in unison after receiving an order to fire, most historians lay the blame at least equally with the mob of angry colonists who were taunting the soldiers, pelting them with stones and snowballs, and who were generally known for their proclivity to attack and loot loyalist businesses. 

The patriot colonists possessed real grievances—no taxation without representation, anyone?—but besides being driven in part by lofty ideals of freedom, it is helpful to recognize that they were also self-interested and perfectly content to ignore evidence that didn’t benefit their cause, such as the fact that the British crown had raised taxes to cover the costs of protecting the colonies during the French and Indian War. 

We learn history, especially our own history, as a set of concrete facts, but in reality it is messy, fluid, and contentious. Where one stands and one’s clan usually matter most. This is a principle I’ve also noticed in my study of Chinese history. For instance, mainland Chinese refer to the year 1949, when Mao Zedong and the communists founded the People’s Republic of China, as a marker for liberation, whereas Taiwanese refer to the Nationalists’ defeat by the communists as the withdrawal to Taiwan. 

When defining historical truth and canonicity it is might that makes right. In premodern Chinese history, it was common practice for conquering dynasties to vilify the regimes they overthrew in order to cultivate their own legitimacy. One ridiculous example comes from the fall of the Shang dynasty in 1046 B.C, which became known for its notoriously corrupt ruler, King Zhou. Officials from the next dynasty, which is also named Zhou—Chinese can be confusing sometimes!—spread far and wide tales of King Zhou’s extravagant debauchery, manifested most obscenely by his palatial grounds where he supposedly kept lakes of wine and forests of hanging meat for his leisure. The story has both a kernel of truth—the terrible King Zhou—and myth—his exaggerated pleasure grounds. Coincidentally, “lakes of wine and forests of meat” (酒池肉林) is a favorite idiom of mine; trust me, the phrase rolls off the tongue in Chinese! 

In contemporary life, naming is just as important. Where I grew up in metro Detroit, fierce disagreement still exists over what to call the violence and destruction that took place in Detroit in 1967. Was it a riot, rebellion, uprising, or civil disturbance? After George Floyd’s murder (this should now be an uncontroversial term after Chauvin’s guilty verdict), were demonstrators largely peaceful protestors or troublemaking rioters? What about January 6, 2021—was it a protest taken too far or an insurrection? Internationally, despite overwhelming evidence that the Armenian genocide, which took place over a century ago, was indeed a genocide, it was only recognized as such this year by the United States government. 

The parsing of words is no minor squabble. It has real-world implications in terms of policy and people’s lives. Nevertheless, deciding when to take a stand on one side of an issue versus when to seek middle ground is a thorny and complicated affair. It is not my place to tell others where to fall on particular issues. I only hope we can exercise more care, thoughtfulness, and empathy in arriving at titles and interpretations. 

Chad Westra

Chad Westra (’15) is a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington where he studies modern Chinese history. He enjoys chess, following Detroit sports, and caring for the overgrowth of plants in his condo.