The Boston Tea Party

After covering events that escalated tensions between the colonists in North America and the British Empire, iʻve come to a conclusion that there was no real defining moment that led to the revolution of 1776. It was rather a set of events that gradually led to the said outcome, and the Boston Tea Party was one of them. The Mercantilist British Empire had not yet learned the lesson that the American colonists valued their rights and freedoms, and they would not stand idly by as attempts were made to control their way of life. Taxation without representation, wars fought over the right to monopolize a commodity, centralization of governmental authority were all valid reasons for the grudge the Americans had against the British.

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 taxed the tea when it reached colonial ports. The reason the British taxed the tea was that the colonists drank so much of it that they could not afford to lose all that revenue, especially after the 7 Yearsʻ War. Tea smuggling became common, so frequent that the British East India Company nearly went bankrupt because they had a surplus of tea. Coalitions of Merchants and tradesmen such as the ʻSons of Libertyʻ protested the Stamp Act and other forms of taxation. Prominent historical figures such as John Adams and Paul Revere were among the sons of Liberty.

A British East India Company ship called the ʻDarmouthʻ, along with her sister ships Beaver, and Eleanor were loaded with tea from China on the 16th of December of 1773. On that morning, thousands of colonists had agreed not to pay the tariffs of the tea, or allow it to be unloaded, sold or used. That same 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. Ironically, revolutionary figures such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington did not approve of this, as they believed that the destruction of private property was not the ideal way to handle the situation. Over a million dollars (current) in property was lost after the Boston Tea Party.