Boston Tea Party

Seeds of the Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party is considered to be one of the catalysts that started the American Revolutionary War, the war against Great Britain that led to the independence of the then 13 states that later on made up part of the United States of America. It is the culmination of protests against what was seen then as unfair taxation without representation to the British Parliament, embodied by the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767.

In 1768, the Liberty, a ship owned by John Hancock, was seized by British customs, and charges of smuggling tea were placed on Hancock. In reaction, Hancock called for the boycott of tea shipped by the British East India Company to the colonies. The boycott was so successful that the British Parliament then passed the Tea Act in 1773, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea without paying any duties to Britain, thereby undercutting the price of tea as sold by the American smugglers.

On the Day of the Boston Tea Party

On November of 1773, amidst protests from the Sons of Liberty led by Samuel Adams, the owners of Dartmouth requested Governor Thomas Hutchinson to allow the ship to leave Boston without unloading tea. Gov. Hutchinson, however, insisted on the tea being unloaded and ordered the blockade of the Boston Harbor.

On the night of December 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty snuck up at the harbor, boarded Dartmouth as well as the Eleanor and the Beaver and had casks of tea dumped into the sea. Nothing else was damaged that night, only the tea.

As a result, the British Parliament passed the Conciliatory Resolution that stopped taxation to colonies that provided satisfactory protection to the British imperial army station therein and closed off the port of Boston.