Boston Tea Party

Sarah Musaev, Evan Glickman, Lanie Patterson, Danielle Capitini, Anthony Gelin

Events Leading to the Boston Tea Party

The British East India Company had controlled all tea trading between India and the British colonies

As a result of the tea tax, the colonies refused to buy the British tea

Instead, they smuggled tea in from Holland

Continued…..

This left the British East India Company with warehouses full of unsold tea, and the company was in danger of going out of business.

The British government was determined to prevent the British East India Company from going out of business

It was going to force the colonists to buy their tea

Tea Act 1773

In May 1773, Prime Minister North and the British parliament passed the Tea Act.

The Tea Act allowed the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the colonists, by passing the colonial wholesale merchants

This allowed the company to sell their tea cheaper than the colonial merchants who were selling smuggled tea from Holland

Continued….

This act revived the colonial issue of taxation without representation

The colonies once again demanded that the British government remove the tax on tea

In addition, the dockworkers began refusing to unload the tea from ships.

Tea act cont.

The Governor of Massachusetts demanded that the tea be unloaded.

He also demanded that the people pay the taxes and duty on tea.

Resisting the Tea Act

In September and October 1773, seven ships carrying East India Company tea were sent to the colonies: four were bound for Boston, and one each for New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston

In the ships were more than 2,000 chests containing nearly 600,000 pounds of tea

Americans learned the details of the Tea Act while the ships were en route, and opposition began to mount.

Whigs, sometimes calling themselves Sons of Liberty, began a campaign to raise awareness and to convince or compel the consignees to resign, in the same way that stamp distributors had been forced to resign in the 1765 Stamp Act crisis

Who was involved

About 60 men disguised as Indians

Boston Colonists vs the British government

A group of colonists boarded the ship This was caused by the British Parliament

who had passed the Tea Act

Colonists had successfully stopped the unloading of tea in three prior colonies

In Boston Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to return to Britain

He did not expect the colonists to go to the extent they did

Destruction of the tea

On the evening of December 16, 1773, a group of men calling themselves the "Sons of Liberty" went to the Boston Harbor. The men were dressed as Mohawk Indians. They boarded three British ships, the Beaver, the Eleanor and the Dartmouth, and dumped forty-five tons of tea into the Boston Harbor.

Reaction

The Boston Tea Party and the colonists boycotted tea, while angry mobs broke out resisting the act.

Reaction

Many colonists wanted to do something similar, such as burning the Peggy Stewart but that did not work out as planned.

The Boston Tea Party proved to be one of so many reactions which soon led to the American Revolutionary War.

Reaction

In February, 1775, Britain passed the Conciliatory Resolution.

The Conciliatory Resolution was a resolution passed by the British Parliament in an attempt to reach a peaceful settlement with the Thirteen Colonies.

Reaction The Tea Act was repealed with the

Taxation of Colonies Act 1778

•The Boston Tea Party and the reaction that followed rallied support for revolutionaries in the thirteen colonies. These colonies were soon very successful in their own fight for independence.