Which 1773 protest became known as the Boston Tea Party?

The Boston Tea Party was the 1773 protest in which colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor.

On December 16, 1773, participants boarded ships and destroyed a large shipment of tea rather than allow it to be unloaded under conditions they opposed. The protest targeted taxation and the East India Company’s privileged position in the colonial tea trade. It became one of the best-known acts of resistance before the American Revolution.

The participants were associated with the Sons of Liberty, and many disguised themselves to conceal their identities. Contrary to some popular retellings, the protest did not involve random destruction of every item in the harbor; the central action focused on tea cargo.

Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. Those measures intensified colonial resistance and helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774, linking the event to the longer history remembered during America250.