What event involved colonists dumping tea into Boston Harbor?

The Boston Tea Party was the 1773 protest in which American colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor. On the night of December 16, members and allies of the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships and destroyed hundreds of chests of East India Company tea.

The protest grew out of opposition to the Tea Act, passed by the British Parliament in May 1773. Although the act allowed the East India Company to sell tea more cheaply, colonists objected to the tax and to Parliament’s authority to impose it without colonial representation. Their slogan was effectively “no taxation without representation.”

Many participants disguised themselves, including some who wore clothing associated with Native Americans, and they carefully avoided stealing other cargo or damaging the ships. Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by colonists, which punished Massachusetts and restricted self-government. The Boston Tea Party did not begin the war by itself, but it sharply increased tensions before fighting erupted at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.