Boston tea party
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Updated: 23 Mar 2023
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Created byShaniya smith
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Britain was in debt, so the British Parliament put out a series of taxes on American
colonists to help pay off their debt.The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed
colonists on literally every piece
of printed paper they used, from
playing cards and business
licenses to newspapers and
legal documents and almost every
thing they owned.The Townshend Acts of 1767 went a step further, taxing essentials such as paint, paper, glass, lead and tea.British government felt that
taxes were fair because much of its
debt was earned by fighting wars on behalf
of the colonists’. The colonists, however, disagreed. They were furious at being
taxed without having any representation
in Parliament, and felt it was wrong for
Britain to impose taxes on them to gain money.On March 5, 1770, a street brawl happened in Boston between American colonists and British soldiers.Later known as the Boston Massacre,
the fight began after an angry group of colonists—frustrated with the
British soldiers in their streets—flung snowballs, ice and oyster
shells at a British sentinel guarding the Boston Customs House.Reinforcements arrived and opened fire on the mob, killing five colonists and wounding six. The Boston Massacre and its fallout further incited the colonists’ rage towards Britain.Britain eventually took down the
taxes it had imposed on the
colonists, all excpt the tea tax. It wasn’t
about to give up tax revenue on the
nearly 1.2 million pounds of tea the
colonists drank each year.In protest, the colonists boycotted
tea sold by British East India Company
and smuggled in Dutch tea, leaving
British East India Company with
millions of pounds of surplus tea
and facing bankruptcy.In May 1773, British Parliament passed the Tea Act which allowed British East India
Company to sell tea to the colonies
duty-free and much cheaper than
other tea companies—but still tax
the tea when it reached colonial ports.Tea smuggling in the colonies increased, although the cost of the smuggled tea soon surpassed that of tea from British East India Company with the added tea tax.Still, with the help of prominent tea
smugglers such as John Hancock and
Samuel Adams —who protested
taxation without representation
but also wanted to protect their tea
smuggling operations—colonists
continued to rail against the tea
tax and Britain’s control over their
interests.VideoThe Sons of Liberty were a group of
colonial merchants and tradesmen
founded to protest the Stamp Act and
other forms of taxation. The group of revolutionists included prominent
patriots such as Benedict Arnold, Patrick Henry and Paul Revere, as well as Adams and Hancock.Led by Adams, the Sons of Liberty
held meetings rallying against
British Parliament and protested
the Griffin’s Wharf arrival of
Dartmouth, a British East India
Company ship carrying tea. By
December 16, 1773, Dartmouth
had been joined by her sister ships,
Beaver and Eleanor; all three ships
loaded with tea from China.That morning, as thousands of
colonists gathered at the wharf
and its surrounding streets, a meeting
was held at the Old South Meeting House where a large group of colonists voted to
refuse to pay taxes on the tea or
allow the tea to be unloaded, stored,
sold or used. (Ironically, the ships were
built in America and owned by Americans.)Governor Thomas Hutchison
did not allow the ships to return
to Britain and ordered that they pay the tea tariff and unloaded the tea. The
colonists refused, and Hutchison
never offered a satisfactory compromise.That night, a large group of men—many reportedly members of the Sons of Liberty— disguised themselves in Native
American garb, boarded the
docked ships and threw 342 chests of tea into the water.Said participant George Hewes, “We
then were ordered by our commander
to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard, and
we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the
chests with our tomahawks, so as
thoroughly to expose them to the
effects of the water.” Hewes also noted
that “We were surrounded by British
armed ships, but no attempt was made
to resist us.”Benjamin Franklin insisted the British
East India Company be reimbursed for
the lost tea and even offered to pay for it himself.No one was hurt, and aside
from the destruction of the tea and a
padlock, no property was damaged or
stolen during the Boston Tea Party.
The participants reportedly swept the ships’ decks clean before they left.Though led by Samuel Adams and his
Sons of Liberty and organized by John
Hancock, the names of many of those
involved in the Boston Tea Party remain unknown. Thanks to their
Native American costumes,
only one of the tea party culprits, Francis Akeley, was arrested and imprisoned.Even after American independence, participants refused to reveal their
identities, fearing they could still
face civil and criminal charges as well as condemnation from elites for the
destruction of private property. Most participants in the Boston Tea Party
were under the age of 40 and 16 of them were teenagers.Periods
Boston dept to Boston destructionevents in BostonEvent progress
The Stamp Act and Townshend Act
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