History Short: The Boston Tea Party

. . . following my previous article here with some additional Revolutionary history . . .

The Boston Tea Party was the first organized act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. The colonists were not going to tolerate taxation and tyranny!

After the French and Indian War, Britain tried to recover its 'war debt' by imposing various taxes on the colonies. "Taxation Without Representation" was the resulting cry of the colonists.

Two years before the war started, on December 16th, 1773, a group of patriots dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded British ships anchored in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water. They were known as the Sons of Liberty!

This was retaliation to the Tea Act of 1773 which gave the British East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the colonies. They were selling their tea at a lower price than the colonists and still imposing a tax on them. Double-dipping, so to speak.

The British government considered dumping all this tea as an act of treason, which led to the so-called Intolerable Acts, and made tensions even worse between Britain and the colonies.

The Boston Tea Party was perhaps the pivotal point that led up to the American Revolution and the colonists' fight for freedom. 🇺🇸 🇺🇸