The Boston Tea Party

December 16, 1773

The causes of the Boston Tea Party were the passing of the Tea Act in 1773. This granted the British East India Company the right to sell tea to the colonies free of the taxes that colonial tea sellers had to pay. This cut colonial merchants out of the tea trade.

American colonists responded with protests and coordinated resistance by convening the First Continental Congress in September and October of 1774 to petition Britain to repeal the Intolerable Acts.

The British response to the Boston Tea Party was to impose even more stringent policies on the Massachusetts colony. The Coercive Acts levied fines for the destroyed tea, sent British troops to Boston, and rewrote the colonial charter of Massachusetts, giving broadly expanded powers to the royally appointed governor.

Boston Tea Party, (December 16, 1773), incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians.

The Boston Tea Party gave the colonists the motivation to stand up for their rights and to ultimately risk their lives by going to war for their independence. The Boston Tea Party is also important for its inspiration, not only to Americans but to other rebels against injustice around the world.

The Boston Tea Party was the first significant act of defiance by American colonists. The implication and impact of the Boston Tea Party was enormous ultimately leading to the sparking of the American Revolution which began in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775.

It's estimated that the protestors tossed more than 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. That's enough to fill 18.5 million teabags.

American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing "taxation without representation," dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists.

The Boston Tea Party caused considerable property damage and infuriated the British government. ... Colonial resistance intensified until, three years after Parliament passed the Tea Act, the colonies declared their independence as the United States of America. The American Revolution had begun.