by Vincent R. Santo

Created on: July 08, 2008   Last Updated: July 31, 2008

The Boston Tea Party was an act of defiance against the British Crown by American colonials who had become increasingly disenchanted with London's tightening rule in New England. It took place in December 1773 and did much to inflame the already simmering tensions between Britain and her once-loyal colony. When the Party was over about 90,000 pounds (45 tons) worth of British tea were dropped into Boston Harbor, infuriating King George III and forcing the English Parliament to punish Massachusetts severely. Today, this protest is remembered as one of the most significant catalysts of the American Revolution.

The event was organized by a radical group known as the Sons of Liberty, and their numbers included many prominent Bostonians such as John Hancock, Paul Revere, Dr. Joseph Warren, and both John and Samuel Adams. The Sons were angry at the British for levying what they considered unfair taxation practices upon the colonies while offering them no representation in Parliament. In their quest for revenge they focused their resentment upon the British East India Company, the leading supplier of tea in America at the time.
When the British passed the Tea Act in May 1773 it gave the East India Company an unfair advantage over competing American tea merchants by allowing it to sell its products at less than half the going colonial price. After a series of protests led by Samuel Adams did nothing to make the Crown back off its position, he and his contemporaries dressed themselves in the guise of Narragansett Indians on the night of December 16, 1773. They boarded three British tea vessels in Boston Harbor and tossed 342 chests of tea (worth nearly $1.9 million in today's U.S. dollars) into the water.
The British reacted with apoplexy. This time the Sons and their allies in America had gone way too far. When Parliament learned of the Tea Party in early 1774 they passed a number of laws that the colonies labeled the Intolerable Acts. First, the port of Boston was closed until the destroyed tea had been repaid and Britain had been satisfied that the lawlessness was under control. Next, the Massachusetts government was changed so that its power was severely limited, bringing the upstart colony almost completely under the heel of British rule. Parliament also decided that if English subjects were accused of a crime in America their trial would be moved back to Great Britain because the atmosphere in the colonies could never permit a fair trial. In a final act of punishment, the Crown ordered that America had to provide detachments of British troops with suitable quarters during their stay there.
Despite these best intentions by the British the Intolerable Acts only served to enrage the colonists even more. Instead of causing the colonists to turn on the Sons of Liberty and their ilk these punitive actions actually increased support for radicalism throughout America. Beforehand Massachusetts had been viewed outside its region as a land of instigators but now had remarkably gained the sympathy of a number of its sister colonies as the victim of brutal, unyielding tyrant. In response to the British actions the First Continental Congress was organized; it was at this historic gathering where a plan was adopted to come to the aid of Massachusetts in the event of a British invasion. The seeds of the American Revolution had been planted, and they would germinate at Lexington Green in April 1775.

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