The Boston Tea Party involved dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.
On December 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships and threw East India Company tea overboard. The protest opposed Parliament’s tea policies and the broader principle of taxation without colonial representation.
The event intensified the dispute between Britain and the colonies. Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and, eventually, armed conflict.
The Boston Tea Party is sometimes described simply as a protest against a high tea tax. The Tea Act actually reduced the price of East India Company tea while giving the company a powerful advantage in colonial markets. The protest focused on parliamentary authority and monopoly as well as taxation.