Which company owned the tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the 1773 Boston Tea Party?

The British East India Company owned the tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

On December 16, 1773, American colonists boarded three ships and threw 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The tea belonged to the East India Company, which had received financial and trading advantages under the Tea Act passed by Parliament earlier that year.

Many colonists opposed the Tea Act not because it made tea more expensive in every case, but because it allowed the company to sell tea directly to the colonies while retaining a tax. Protesters argued that accepting the tea would recognize Parliament’s power to tax them without colonial representation.

The British government responded with the Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by many colonists. These measures intensified the crisis that led to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and eventually to the Revolutionary War.