Boycotts have been a part of American life since the Boston Tea Party. Well, that’s a stretch, I admit, but only on a technicality. Let me explain.
American historians have classified the actions of Colonial Americans who defied the British by dumping tea into the Boston Harbor in 1767 as a boycott. But, as you know, history is usually written by people living later than the events they describe, and in 1767 the word “boycott” was not even in the English vocabulary.
Earlier that year, the British had adopted the Townshend Act that taxed tea and other products imported by its colonies. When the colonists responded by enacting a Non-Importation agreement, sales to the new world dropped sufficiently enough as to cause the repeal of the harsh British law, though the tax on tea was retained.
The result? The dumping of the tea and the refusal to purchase it in the future, i.e., the boycott.
The term “boycott” was originally the last name of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, the estate agent of the Earl of Erne in Ireland. In the 1880s, land reform advocate and politician Charles Parnell solicited property owners to reduce rents on tenants under certain circumstances. Rather than doing so, Boycott evicted those living on the Earl’s land. Parnell’s supporters retaliated by giving Boycott the cold shoulder and, with help from the Irish Land League, managed to isolate the former Army captain, leaving him without servants, farmhands, mail delivery, or service in the local stores.
Soon Boycott’s name became permanently associated with this kind of treatment and its use quickly spread in other languages including Dutch, German, French, and Russian.
The bus boycotts, economic boycotts, massive demonstrations, and marches in the 1950s and 1960s are probably matters with which we are quite familiar as they led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, there have been quite a number of other boycotts around the world over the past century.
In 1905-1906, Russian peasants, workers, students, and the intelligentsia used this process to force the Czar to allow an elected legislature. A series of strikes or work boycotts in 1919-1920 resulted in Egypt gaining its freedom from British rule.
An organized campaign of non-cooperation led by Mahatma Gandhi over a period of more than 20 years was a contributory force leading to India’s independence from Great Britain in 1947.
Another lengthy endeavor, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, was kicked off by a local boycott that spread to supporters throughout the world. The 35-year effort eventually resulted in the dismantling of the apartheid in the early 1990s.
Other well known boycotts include the 15-year campaign against the purchase of California grapes (which led to the establishment of union contracts between farm workers and growers in 1984) and the 17-year crusade against Nestle (which caused a billion dollar loss in profits and a change in company practices in 1984).
In this century, we have already seen boycotts and massive demonstrations in Burma, Nigeria, China, and other countries. The outcomes the people are seeking include human rights improvement and economic stability.
Even though the event in which immigrants and their supporters participated this week was officially a general “protesta,” or a protest against immigration practices, it was also an economic boycott as there were calls for those involved to refuse to participate in school and work activities and to refrain from most purchases.
The thousands who demonstrated in various cities across the country were attempting to focus greater attention on the immigration situation and perhaps make some impact on the US economy. The success of their efforts is yet to be determined. As a practical and purely economic matter, one-day boycotts rarely have much of an impact. Though they are a source of inconvenience and dislocation, most purchases are merely deferred a day or two, and most of the work that was to be done ultimately gets done. The common denominator of the historic efforts described above is that they persisted over an extended period. From a broader perspective, however, the implications could be more profound.
Analysts, politicians, economists, talk show hosts, and the American public are still evaluating the boycott our nation experienced on May 1. Though there is no consensus as of yet, most would undoubtedly agree that awareness of the immigration situation has been heightened by this effort and other recent events. The world is now watching to see what our elected representatives will do to find the solution that will be in the best interest of our nation and all the people involved. In a future column, I will give you my thoughts on the economic aspects of what that solution should look like.