The Boston Tea Party was the December 16, 1773, protest against British taxation in the American colonies.
That night, colonists boarded ships in Boston Harbor and threw chests of East India Company tea into the water. The protest opposed the Tea Act, which allowed the company to sell tea more cheaply while preserving a tax that many colonists rejected. Protesters objected especially to taxation without colonial representation in Parliament.
The event was organized by members of the Sons of Liberty, and participants attempted to avoid damaging the ships or stealing other cargo. British authorities responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures restricted Massachusetts self-government and helped encourage colonial cooperation.
The Boston Tea Party was not the Boston Massacre, which occurred in 1770, nor was it simply a general rejection of tea. It was a highly symbolic act of resistance that intensified the crisis leading to the American Revolutionary War.