The Boston Tea Party took place on December 16, 1773, an event preceding America250’s founding-era milestones.
That night, colonists in Boston boarded ships and destroyed 342 chests of tea by throwing them into Boston Harbor. The protest opposed the Tea Act, a law that allowed the financially troubled British East India Company to sell tea in the colonies under favorable conditions while retaining a tax on tea.
The protest was not simply a rejection of cheap tea. Many participants objected to taxation without colonial representation and feared that accepting the tea would imply acceptance of Parliament’s authority to tax them. Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists, which intensified resistance.
The Boston Tea Party is sometimes confused with the Boston Massacre of 1770 or the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775. It was a protest, not a battle, but it helped accelerate the political crisis that led to the American Revolutionary War.