may 10, 1773 - Tea Act May 10th 1773

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On the 10th of May, Parliament of Great Britain passed a bill that was designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy. They lowered the tax on tea it paid to the British Government, granting them some monopoly over the American Tea Trade.
The British rationalized this by justifying keeping taxation and, just like the Townshend acts, put the absolute sovereignty over colonies in action to show their power.
The colonists reacted by protesting, boycotting, and staging the Boston Tea Party, where they overthrew crates and crates of tea over the ships and into the water. The colonists did this because they saw the tax as restraining in its terms. Many influential merchants were enraged and feared that they would be replaced and go bankrupt from the now powerful monopoly.

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