Which 1773 protest saw colonists throw tea into Boston Harbor to oppose British taxation?

The Boston Tea Party was the 1773 protest in which colonists threw tea into Boston Harbor to oppose British taxation.

On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of Massachusetts colonists boarded ships belonging to the East India Company. They destroyed 342 chests of tea by dumping them into the harbor, protesting the Tea Act and the broader principle of taxation without colonial representation.

The protesters did not simply oppose the price of tea. The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to sell tea directly to the colonies, threatening colonial merchants while retaining the tax on tea. The action was dramatic because it destroyed private property while avoiding attacks on the ships themselves.

Britain responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures helped intensify resistance and contributed to the meeting of the First Continental Congress in 1774.