The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, an anti-tax protest from the founding era highlighted by America250.
That night, members of the Sons of Liberty and other participants boarded tea ships in Boston Harbor. Disguised in ways commonly described as American Indian attire, they broke open 340 or 342 chests of East India Company tea and dumped the cargo into the water. The exact number varies by historical source.
The protest followed Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773. The act actually lowered the price of legally imported tea in the colonies, but many colonists objected to the East India Company’s favored position and to Parliament’s claim to tax them without colonial representation.
Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures intensified resistance and helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774. The Boston Tea Party therefore preceded, rather than began on the same date as, the Revolutionary War’s first battles in 1775.