What 1773 Boston protest involved colonists throwing East India Company tea into the harbor?

The 1773 Boston protest in which colonists threw East India Company tea into the harbor was the Boston Tea Party.

The protest occurred on December 16, 1773, in Boston, Massachusetts, then part of British America. Members and allies of the Sons of Liberty boarded tea ships and dumped their cargo into Boston Harbor. They objected to Parliament’s Tea Act and to taxation imposed without colonial representation.

The Tea Act allowed the financially troubled East India Company to sell tea directly in the colonies, potentially undercutting local merchants. Although the act lowered the price of some tea, many colonists viewed it as a way to reinforce Parliament’s claimed power to tax them.

Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures punished Massachusetts and helped encourage colonial cooperation, including the First Continental Congress. The Boston Tea Party was a protest, not a general rejection of tea as a drink.