The Boston Tea Party was a political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773.[1] The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts, thus undercutting local tea merchants: Demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.