For America250’s Revolutionary War history, on what date did the Boston Tea Party occur?

For America250’s Revolutionary War history, the Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16, 1773.

That night, colonists in Boston boarded tea ships and threw 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. The protest opposed the Tea Act, which gave the company favorable trading conditions while maintaining a tax on tea imported into the colonies.

The participants included members of the Sons of Liberty, and some disguised themselves as Mohawk people. The action was not simply a general objection to tea; it challenged Parliament’s authority to tax the colonies and the company’s special privileges.

Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists, in 1774. Those measures helped intensify colonial resistance and contributed to the meeting of the First Continental Congress. The tea protest therefore formed part of the chain of events leading toward independence in 1776.