The Boston Tea Party occurred in 1773, an event often included in America250’s Revolutionary timeline.
On December 16, 1773, colonists in Boston protested the Tea Act by boarding ships and throwing chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The protest opposed taxation and the East India Company’s special trading privileges, which many colonists viewed as threats to representative government and local merchants.
The British government responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures helped intensify resistance and contributed to the gathering of the First Continental Congress in 1774.
The Boston Tea Party did not directly declare independence, and it happened three years before the Declaration of Independence. It is nevertheless an important part of the chain of events leading to the Revolutionary War and the independence anniversary commemorated by America250.