The Boston Tea Party was the 1773 protest in which American colonists dumped British tea into Boston Harbor. On December 16, participants boarded three East India Company ships and destroyed tea rather than allow it to be unloaded under the Tea Act.
The Tea Act of 1773 did not create a new tax on tea, but it allowed the financially troubled East India Company to sell tea directly in the colonies while retaining an existing duty. Many colonists opposed both the tax and the principle that Parliament could impose it without colonial representation.
Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures tightened imperial control and helped prompt the First Continental Congress in 1774. The event is often confused with the Boston Massacre of 1770, which involved soldiers and a deadly street confrontation rather than a harbor protest.