Boston Tea Party

In Boston on December 16, 1773, opponents of British rule destroyed a shipment of taxed East India Company tea to reject Parliament’s claim to tax the colonies without representation. The protest grew from resistance to the Tea Act, which let the company sell tea directly in America while retaining the Townshend duty that many colonists viewed as unconstitutional. Members of the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Native Americans, boarded the Dartmouth and dumped more than 340 chests into the harbor. Britain answered with the Intolerable Acts in 1774, widening the conflict and helping set the colonies on the path to the American Revolution.

Boston, Massachusetts · United States