Boston Tea Party

When a person listens to the words: Boston Tea Party, he/she imagines a very neat, elegant, nice room with clean tables fixed with comfty chairs, with trays of hot tea on them, cookies, biscuits, and bagels placed on a larger tray at the middle of the table and cheerful people celebrating a special occasion. The Boston Tea Party wasnt really anything like the described above.

Colonists were refusing to pay the taxes levied by the Townshend Acts, because as we discussed in our previous post, they didnt have any representation in Parliament and therefore they though Parliament had no right to levy them with taxes. Parliament decided to take all the taxes away-except for the one in tea-just as a demonstration that they did have the right to tax them. The colonists refused to pay those taxes, so they boycotted on the British tea and started smuggling on Dutch tea. When Parliament saw this, they gave the struggling East Indian Company, a monopoly of the importation of tea to America.These lowered the price of British tea, but the colonists rathered smuggling on the Dutch tea just to resist what they knew was just a strategy of Parliament.

This historic event, occured on a 16 of december, of the year 1773. Colonists had asked to officials that 3 ships loaded with taxed tea were sent back to Britain, but they refused. In responde, veiled with the coming of night, a group of men, "The Sons of Liberty" walked into the Boston Harbor. They were dressed as Mohawk indians, with even their face painted, to disguise their identity. They were divided in three groups, because their were three ships loaded with a valuable amount of tea. These ships were called: "The Beaver", the "Eleanor", and the "Dartmouth".

It is estimated that up to 130 men participated in the Boston Tea Party. These men mounted the three vessesl mentioned before, and dumped about 342 chests containing approximately 45 pounds of tea into the harbor. This is why it is sometimes called the "Largest Cup of Tea in America". Just imagine what color the water might have turned into, with pieces of tea floating everywhere. These act is symbolic to the United States history, because it wasnt only a furious act of rebellion; it was an aim to protect their constitutional rights. As excpected, authorities were enraged, and passed the Intolerable Acts, which basically ended self government in the colony of Massachussets and restricted the commerce in Boston.

Here is a link of the chronology of the events that lead to the Boston Tea Party and also the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party: http://www.american-presidents-history.com/boston-tea-party-timeline.html
This image represents what happened: