The Boston Tea Party was an act of direct action by the American colonists against Great Britain in which they destroyed many crates of tea bricks on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, help to spark the American Revolution.
The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 angered colonists regarding British decisions on taxing the colonies despite a lack of representation in the Westminster Parliament. One of the protesters was John Hancock. In 1768, Hancock's ship Liberty was seized by customs officials, and he was charged with smuggling. He was defended by John Adams, and the charges were eventually dropped. However, Hancock later faced several hundred more indictments.
Hancock organized a boycott of tea from China sold by the British East India Company, whose sales in the colonies then fell from 320,000 pounds (145,000 kg) to 520 pounds (240 kg). By 1773, the company had large debts, huge stocks of tea in its warehouses and no prospect of selling it. The British government passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies directly and without "payment of any customs or duties whatsoever" in Britain, instead paying the much lower American duty. This tax break allowed the East India Company to sell tea for half the old price and cheaper than the price of tea in England, enabling them to undercut the prices offered by the colonial merchants.
American colonists, resented this favored treatment of a major company, which employed lobbyists and wielded great influence in Parliament. Protests resulted in both Philadelphia and New York, but it was those in Boston that made their mark in history. Still reeling from the Hutchinson letters, Bostonians suspected the removal of the Tea Tax was simply another attempt by the British parliament to squash American freedom. Samuel Adams and others called for agents and consignees of the East India Company tea to abandon their positions.
The first of many ships which arrived at the Boston harbor carrying the East India Company tea was HMS Dartmouth arriving in late November 1773. A standoff ensued between the port authorities and the Sons of Liberty. Samuel Adams whipped up the growing crowd by demanding a series of protest meetings. Coming from both the city and outlying areas, thousands attended these meetings; every meeting larger than the one before. The crowds shouted defiance not only at the British Parliament, the East India Company, and HMS Dartmouth but at Governor Thomas Hutchinson as well, who was still struggling to have the tea landed. On the night of December 16, the protest meeting, held at Boston's Old South Meeting House, was the largest yet seen. An estimated 8,000 people were said to have attended.
The owner of the Dartmouth and its captain agreed that the tea would be returned to England and similar promises were obtained from the owners of two more vessels en route, the Eleanor and the Beaver. However, Governor Hutchinson ordered the harbor to be blocked and he would not allow any tea-bearing vessels to leave until they had been unloaded.
On Thursday, December 16, 1773, the evening before the tea was due to be landed, Captain Rotch appealed to Governor Hutchinson to allow his ship to leave without unloading its tea. When Roach returned and reported Hutchinson's refusal to a massive protest meeting, Samuel Adams said to the assembly "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country". As though on cue, the Sons of Liberty disguised as Narragansett Indians and armed with small hatchets and clubs, headed toward Griffin's Wharf, where lay Dartmouth and the newly arrived Beaver and Eleanour. Swiftly and efficiently, casks of tea were brought up from the hold to the deck, reasonable proof that some of the "Indians" were, in fact, longshoremen. The casks were opened and the tea dumped overboard; the work, lasting well into the night, was quick, thorough, and efficient. By dawn, over 352 casks or 90,000 lbs (45 tons) of tea worth an estimated £10,000 had been consigned to waters of Boston harbor. Nothing else had been damaged or stolen, except a single padlock accidentally broken and anonymously replaced not long thereafter.
Tea washed up on the shores around Boston for weeks. Attempts were made by the citizens of Boston to carry off some of the tea. A small number of small boats were rowed where the tea was visible beating it with oars to render it unusable.
Hutchinson's actions had caused a crisis. He had been urging London to take a hard line with the Sons of Liberty. If he had done what the other royal governors had done and let the ship owners and captains resolve the issue with the colonists, the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and the Beaver would have left without unloading any tea. Faced with widespread resistance, London would have had to revoke the Tea Act. In February, 1775, Britain passed the Conciliatory Resolution which ended taxation for any colony which satisfactory provided for the imperial defence and the upkeep of imperial officers.
In Britain, even those politicians considered friends of the colonies were appalled and this act united all parties there against the colonies. Lord North said, "Whatever may be the consequence, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over". The British government felt this was an action which could not be unpunished and responded by closing the port of Boston and put in place other laws that were known as the "Intolerable Acts," also called the Coercive Acts, or Punitive Acts.
In the colonies, A number of colonists were inspired to carry out similar acts, such as the burning of the Peggy Stewart. The Boston Tea Party eventually proved to be one of the many catalysts which led to the American Revolutionary War. At the very least, the Boston Tea Party and the reaction that followed served to rally support for revolutionaries in the thirteen colonies who were eventually successful in their fight for independence.
Many colonists, in Boston and elsewhere in the country, pledged to abstain from tea drinking as a protest, turning instead to "Balsamic hyperion" (made from raspberry leaves), other herbal infusions and coffee.
The Boston Tea Party is known around the world and has been inspirational to other noted activists and reform leaders. For example, Erik H. Erikson records in his book "Gandhi's Truths" that when Mahatma Gandhi met with the British viceroy in 1930 after the Indian salt protest campaign, Gandhi took some duty-free salt from his shawl and said, with a smile, that the salt was "to remind us of the famous Boston Tea Party."
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