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[[image:BostonTea.jpg|300px|thumb|"The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor." 1773]]

[[image:BostonTea.jpg|300px|right|thumb|"The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor." 1773]]

The '''Boston Tea Party''' (Dec. 16, 1773) was led by [[Samuel Adams]] and other members of the [[Sons of Liberty]], who thinly disguised themselves as Mohawk [[Native Americans | Indians]] and boarded ships of British East India Company, dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.

The '''Boston Tea Party''' was an event which took place on December 16, 1773, when a group of Bostonians boarded ships of British East India Company and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor, becoming one of several major incidents which led to the [[American Revolution]] two years later.

Bostonians and other colonists had been subjected to a tax on tea as well as paint, paper, and glass with the passage of the [[Townshend Acts]] in 1767. Protests and non-importation movements by the colonists led the repeal of the Townshend duties in 1770, with the exception of the duty on tea. In 1773, [[Parliament]] passed the [[Tea Act]] which allowed the struggling [[East India Tea Company]] to sell a half million pounds of tea in the colonies while bypassing the importation taxes normally paid under the [[British Navigation Acts]].  For all practical purposes, the 1773 Tea Act gave the East India Tea Company a monopoly by allowing them to charge less than other merchants. Despite the fact they were now paying less for tea, American colonists [[protest]]ed the act. Incidents like the Boston Tea Party were avoided in other port cities, when East India ships left without unloading their cargo in the face of protests by colonists.  [[Massachusetts]] governor [[Thomas Hutchinson]], however, issued an order forbidding ships to leave port without unloading their cargo and this was a key factor that led to the Boston Tea Party.  

Bostonians and other colonists had been subjected to a tax on tea as well as paint, paper, and glass with the passage of the [[Townshend Acts]] in 1767. Protests and non-importation movements by the colonists led the repeal of the Townshend duties in 1770, with the exception of the duty on tea. In 1773, [[Parliament]] passed the [[Tea Act]] which allowed the struggling [[East India Tea Company]] to sell a half million pounds of tea in the colonies while bypassing the importation taxes normally paid under the [[British Navigation Acts]].  For all practical purposes, the 1773 Tea Act gave the East India Tea Company a monopoly by allowing them to charge less than other merchants. Despite the fact they were now paying less for tea, American colonists [[protest]]ed the act. In other port cities the tea was either unload and stored, or sent back to England in the face of protests, but not in Boston, where [[Massachusetts]] governor [[Thomas Hutchinson]] became determined to force the colonists to pay the duty on the tea, and issued orders that no British ship was to leave port without unloading their cargo.  

Tea was especially important in the colonies, because much of the water in America at this time was unsafe to drink, and thus tea was a staple alternative.

On the evening of December 16, 1773, Boston brewer and patriot [[Samuel Adams]] and other members of the [[Sons of Liberty]], thinly-disguised as Native Americans, forced their way onto the three British East India Company ships moored to the piers and dumped the entire cargo of tea into the harbor.

A similar event happened in [[Delaware]] several days later, involving about twice as much tea.

The colonists refused to pay for the lost tea, resulting in an outraged British Parliament passing a series of laws meant to punish Boston and tighten British control in the area.  Under the so-called [[Intolerable Acts]], Britain closed the port of Boston, turned private homes into quarters for British soldiers; curtailed the power of the assemblies in Boston and Massachusetts as a whole; and prevented trials against British officials who were charged with crimes.  The bitterness and hatred the Intolerable Acts caused mearly hastened the coming revolution; the memory of those acts after the revolution ended led to the incorporation of the first seven amendments to the [[United States Constitution]].

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