by A. M.
The Boston Tea Party was a protest by the Sons of Liberty. It happened in Boston, Massachusetts on December 16,1773. It was in response to the Tea Act of May, 10, 1773. The Tea Act allowed the British East India Company to sell Chinese tea without paying taxes. All other taxes still had to be paid under the Townsend Act’s.
Boston demonstrators dressed up and destroyed an entire shipment of tea. They got on to ships and threw crates of tea into the Boston Harbor. The colonist reacted to the Tea Act because they felt it broke their rights as Englishmen. They felt that their right was, “no taxation without representation.” Meaning that they felt they should only be taxes if they had their own elected people in the government in Britain. They did not.
The Tea Tax helped the British East India Company and hurt the local traders. Colonist had prevented tea from being unloaded in three other colonies. However, in Boston the British Governor, Thomas Hutchinson, did not allow the tea to be returned to Britain.
The British government then created the Intolerable Acts, also known as the Coercive Acts in 1774. This ended the ability of colonists having their own leaders in Massachusetts. It also closed Boston to trade. Throughout the Thirteen Colonies colonist protested these Acts and then united to created the First Continental Congress. This group of colonist asked the British government for the Acts to end and organized protests against them.
The fighting grew so bad that it became the American Revolutionary War. This war began near Boston in 1775. Ten years earlier, in 1765 two issues started the fight between the colonist and the British government. The first was the financial problems of the British East India Company. The second was the issue of how much power the British Government had over the colonies without any elected leaders to represent them. This is how the Boston Tea Party lead to the creation of the United States.