Which 1773 British law helped provoke the Boston Tea Party?

The Tea Act helped provoke the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

Parliament passed the Tea Act on May 10, 1773. It allowed the financially troubled British East India Company to ship tea directly to the American colonies and sell it through selected consignees. The law did not create a new tea tax, but it preserved the existing Townshend duty while giving the company commercial advantages.

Many colonists objected that the arrangement threatened local merchants and reinforced Parliament’s authority to tax them without elected representation. On December 16, 1773, protesters in Boston boarded East India Company ships and threw tea into the harbor. The action became one of the most famous acts of colonial resistance.

Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists, in 1774. The Stamp Act came earlier, in 1765, and the Townshend Acts were passed in 1767, so neither was the immediate legislative trigger for the Boston Tea Party.