Disguises, not matching costumes
The protesters who boarded the tea ships in Boston Harbor in December 1773 tried to disguise themselves as “Indians,” as accounts of the event described it. Later retellings often identify them specifically as Mohawks. But there is no good basis for imagining a uniform outfit worn by every participant: the disguise was a practical cover, assembled from clothing and materials at hand, not a standardized costume.
Accounts associate the disguises with darkened faces and Indigenous-style dress, but details vary. The point was to make the men harder to recognize as they broke open the tea chests and dumped their contents into the harbor. Their identities mattered: the action defied British authority, and being caught could bring serious consequences.
Why invoke Native identity?
The disguise also made the protest more than a matter of concealment. In colonial political imagery, Native people could represent resistance to British power and a claim to freedom from imperial control. By adopting that imagery, the protesters made their defiance visible while obscuring who they were.
That choice is controversial today because colonists were using Indigenous identity as a political symbol, rather than representing Native people or their communities. “Mohawk” is the familiar label in popular accounts, but it should not be mistaken for proof that the participants were Mohawk or that they wore accurate Mohawk regalia. The clearest answer is that they used improvised Indigenous-style disguises, later remembered in a more specific form than the evidence can firmly establish.
