The Boston Tea Party (Article) - Khan Academy

The Boston Tea Party
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After Parliament passed the Tea Act, American colonists reacted with a tea party
of their own.
Overview
The Boston Tea Party, which involved the willful destruction of 342
crates of British tea, proved a significant development on the path to the
American Revolution.
The Boston Tea Party, which occurred on December 16, 1773 and was
known to contemporaries as the Destruction of the Tea, was a direct
response to British taxation policies in the North American colonies.
The British response to the Boston Tea Party was to impose even more
stringent policies on the Massachusetts colony. The Coercive Acts levied
fines for the destroyed tea, sent British troops to Boston, and rewrote the
colonial charter of Massachusetts, giving broadly expanded powers to the
royally appointed governor.
British taxation policies

After the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, the British Empire was
in financial distress. Though the British had won the war, they had spent vast
amounts of blood and treasure in the process. At the end of the war, the
British Parliament sought to replenish its depleted coffers by taxing the North
American colonies.
When the British Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed the Tea Act in May
1773, he was not even thinking of the North American colonies, but rather of
the East India Company, which had assumed control over India. In
exchange for the power to appoint its governors, North loaned the company
£1.5 million—the equivalent of about $270 million today. North also granted
the company a monopoly on the right to sell tea in the North American
colonies.
Thomas Malton the Younger, London headquarters of the British East India Company, undated. Image
credit: Yale Center for British Art
The Boston Tea Party

As the British authorized the shipment of thousands of pounds of tea to its
colonies in North America—Boston, Charleston, New York City, and
Philadelphia—colonial tea merchants protested.
In Boston, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a pro-British Loyalist, demanded

that the ships be allowed to dock and that colonial merchants pay the duties
on the cargo. Boston was the center of colonial revolutionary fervor, and its
radicals did not take kindly to Hutchinson’s demands. The Sons of Liberty, a
secret society formed by radical colonists to protest British taxation policies
after the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765, spearheaded the opposition to
the Tea Act.
On December 16, 1773 at Griffin’s Wharf, a group of approximately 50
Bostonians disguised as Native Americans boarded the
ships Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor, and proceeded to dump 342 crates of
tea into the Boston harbor. In doing so, they destroyed almost 10 thousand
pounds sterling worth of tea—worth about $1.7 million today—that belonged
to the British East India Company. The incident, referred to at the time by
John Adams as the Destruction of the Tea, would not become known as
the Boston Tea Party for another fifty years.
Nathaniel Currier, print depicting the Boston Tea Party, 1846. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Paul Revere carried the news of the destruction of the tea to New York, which
in turn refused to allow the British ships to unload. In Philadelphia, as well,
townspeople gathered to turn the British ships away from harbor. In
Charleston, the ship was docked, but customs officials seized the cargo.
The British empire strikes back

Instead of reforming their tax policies or accommodating the demands of the
colonists, the British responded to the incident by passing the Coercive Acts,
which shut down Boston’s port, modified the charter of Massachusetts—
effectively shutting down the colony’s legislative assembly—and sent British
troops under General Thomas Gage to occupy Boston.
Gage was appointed governor, with broadly expanded powers to appoint

local sheriffs, lodge troops in private homes, and deny townspeople
permission to hold meetings. In response, the colonies called for a
continental congress. The First Continental Congress convened in the
autumn of 1774 and approved a general boycott of British goods. The stage
was set for the ultimate showdown between the British and the colonies in the
American War for Independence.
What do you think?

How would you describe British tax policies in the colonies?
How important do you think the Boston Tea Party was in the ultimate outbreak
of war between Britain and its North American colonies?
Why do you think the British refused to back down in the face of opposition to
its policies?
[Notes and attributions]

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The Boston Tea Party

British taxation policies

The Boston Tea Party

In Boston, Governor Thomas Hutchinson, a pro-British Loyalist, demanded

The British empire strikes back

Gage was appointed governor, with broadly expanded powers to appoint

What do you think?

[Notes and attributions]

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