The Boston Tea Party took place in Boston Harbor in December 1773.
On the night of December 16, colonists boarded three ships and threw 342 chests of East India Company tea into the harbor. The protest opposed the Tea Act and the political principle that Parliament could impose taxes on colonists who had no elected representatives in Parliament.
The participants acted in disguise, and many modern retellings call them “Indians,” reflecting descriptions used at the time. The event was not a general destruction of all tea in Boston; it targeted tea cargo held aboard the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver. The protesters also avoided damaging the ships and other property.
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. The Tea Party occurred before the Revolutionary War and is remembered as one of the escalating confrontations that eventually produced independence.