The Tea Act directly prompted the Boston Tea Party of December 1773.
Parliament passed the Tea Act on May 10, 1773. It allowed the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the American colonies under favorable conditions, while retaining an existing tax on tea. Many colonists opposed the arrangement because they believed Parliament had no right to tax them without elected colonial representation.
On December 16, 1773, protesters in Boston boarded tea ships and threw East India Company tea into Boston Harbor. The event was organized amid wider resistance led by groups known as the Sons of Liberty. It was a protest against taxation, monopoly privileges, and Parliament’s authority.
The Tea Act is often confused with the Townshend Acts, which had imposed duties on several imported goods years earlier. Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party with punitive measures that colonists called the Intolerable Acts. Those measures helped lead to the First Continental Congress in 1774.