 | The Boston Tea Party was a protest commisioned by colonists in Boston, Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, officials in Boston had refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, resulting in a group of colonists boarding the ships and destroying the tea by throwing it into the Boston Harbor. This event stands out in American history and has a tendency to be referenced in other political protests. The Tea Party was part of a resistance movement in British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, which included how the colonists felt that it violated their constitutional right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives, rather than an outside power. Protestors had prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, however in Boston, Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain, although he hadn't expected that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature. The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which had closed Boston's commerce until Britain's East India Company had the destroyed tea repaid for. Colonists in turn responded to the Coercive Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775. |