The December 1773 protest in Boston Harbor, when colonists dumped tea from British ships, was called the Boston Tea Party.
On December 16, 1773, members of the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships—the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver—and threw East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. The protest opposed the Tea Act and the broader principle of taxation without representation.
The Tea Act let the East India Company sell tea in the colonies while retaining a tax imposed by the Townshend Acts. Many colonists viewed the law as an attempt to make an unpopular tax acceptable, even though it lowered the legal price of tea.
Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures intensified resistance and helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the outbreak of war in 1775. The protest involved tea, not a general destruction of all goods in the harbor.