Question: How did Colonists response to the Tea Act contribute to the Boston Tea Party? Thesis: The Boston Tea Party was not only a catalyst for the Revolutionary war, but the dawn of the American spirit as we know it. Introduction: In 1773 British Parliament imposed the Tea Act on American colonists. The primary goals of this act were to bail out the East India Company which was financially struggling at the time, reduce the surplus of tea that they held, and undercut the price of illegal tea sold on Americas black market. Although the tea act reduced the price of tea for America, colonists remained outraged at the audacity of Parliament to impose on the purchase of tea. Colonists, feeling bogged down as a result of the taxes the crown …show more content…
This event was later called the Boston Tea Party. On one hand, it is understood why the colonists reacted the way that they did. The creed "Taxation without representation" was very important to them. Why was Parliament passing so many taxing acts? Even in the event of an act that was designed to give a discount, why did they not have any say in the matter. On the other hand, Parliament sent soldiers from their homeland to defend the colonies from invasion during the seven years' war (French-Indian war) and that was extremely costly for them. The crown needed to pass taxes to recoup all the money that was spent on their behalf. This event is substantial, and it is the beginning of the American revolution. Was the Boston Tea Party a catalyst for the Revolutionary …show more content…
This was well after the Seven Years' war and there were a huge number of assessments and obtrusive acts being passed to recover the cash spent by Great Britain amid the costly war. A ton of the things saddled were merchandise that were utilized all the time by the colonists. The sugar demonstration of 1763 saw sugar being burdened 3 pence per gallon. It additionally expanded expenses on different merchandise dispatched to provinces that were from different nations other than Britain. The cash demonstration of 1751 and 1764 after it saw Parliament passing a law that restricted pilgrims from issuing their own type of money. These were only a couple of the acts that went before the tea acts of 1773 and they drew extraordinary shock from the settlers. "No taxation without representation" was a trademark that homesteaders embraced to express their grievance with the act of taxing them so intensely. Amid this time, the colonists did not feel as though they were by and large appropriately spoke to by Parliament. They didn't have anybody that held a seat in parliament to speak to the issues that they faced all the time. So why were they passing these meddling acts on them? It was an inquiry that was not being replied through the best possible
American Tempest: How the Boston Tea Party Sparked A Revolution written by Harlow Giles Unger offers an in-depth analysis of the Boston Tea Party. Unger organizes the events in chronological order starting 30 years before the Boston Tea Party occurred. In the end he touches upon the aftermath of the journey towards self-government. The book presents many engaging details and provides the reader with more of a storytelling feel. He describes the colonists hard times and anger towards being taxed by British Parliament. Unger adds insights and conclusions about various topics and the people surrounding the rebellion, which was one of his goals in his writing. He wanted to tell of the untold Tea Party 's impact on American history politically, socially, and economically. The book was intended for the general public, because he wrote “ironically, few, if any Americans today… know the true and entire story of the Tea Party and the Patriots who staged it” (4).
It was the Tea Act. This act stated that only the British East India Company could sell or transport tea. Members of parliament passed this act because many of them had stakes in the company. At the time the British India Company was going bankrupt. This act threatened all colonial businesses by creating a monopoly. In Boston, the colonists devised a plan to resist this act. Several colonists dressed as Indians to deceive the British. These colonists seized the imported tea and dumped it into the harbor. The colonists dubbed this “the tea party.” The British responded to these actions by creating four acts jointly called the Coercive Acts. These acts closed the Boston ports to all trade, increased power of Massachusetts governor, granted trials of royal officials in Massachusetts be tried elsewhere, and allowed the new governor rights to quarter his troops anywhere. These Coercive Acts only angered the colonists more. They have strengthened their non-importation of British goods. They have also begun the forming of local militia companies.
In 1773, Parliament aroused the Americans by passage of the Tea Act. This act, designed to help the East India Company by making it cheaper for them to sell tea in America, was interpreted by Americans as a subtle ploy to get them to consume taxed tea. In Boston, in December 1773, a group of men dumped the tea into the harbor.
The Intolerable Acts, otherwise known as the “Coercive” Acts, caused the most unrest among the colonies and led to the American Revolution during the 1700’s. In 1733, Parliament passed the Tea Act. This made it so that colonists could only buy tea from the British East Indies Company. Even though the Tea Act lowered the price of tea, the colonists thought of it as another restriction of their freedom. A group of opposers, dressed as American Indians, threw three-hundred forty chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. The British were enraged and passed the Intolerable Acts. This gave the British all control over Massachusetts and forced colonists to pay back the money for the tea they ruined. Although the Coercive Acts only applied to Massachusetts,
The Boston Tea Party was the result of the Stamp Act being revoked. "Parliament...repealed the Stamp Act...the ministry devised a...indirect tax on tea." (Document 7B2) Many colonists felt as if they were being tricked into paying high taxes, and this was unnecessary and unjust. This caused the colonists to hope for a revolution to begin.
In an engraving by Paul Revere he shows how he thought the Boston Massacre went down (Document 5). The document shows that the British were at fault in the engraving and it just looked like they were killing the colonists on purpose. This ended up being used as anti- British propaganda. Once the propaganda spread, it led to further unification of the colonies which slowly led to the American Revolution. Also, in a eye witness account by George Hewes, he explained how the Boston Tea Party went down (Document 7). The document states, “We then ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all chests of tea and throw them overboard….” The Sons of Liberty were willing to be destructive to prove the point that they did not like paying taxes for tea and did not like how a company monopolized the tea trade. This led to Britain punishing the Massachusetts colony with the Intolerable Acts which then led to the colonies farther growing away from Britain. The resistance in Boston was also a major cause of the American
The Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16, 1773, and is marked as one of the greatest catalysts of the American Revolution. Colonists were enraged by British taxation without proper representation after the French and Indian war. The war had cost the crown dearly and in response, parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765 and the Townsend Revenue Acts in 1767 as an effort to replenish their depleted treasury. Parliament retraced the Stamp Act and the taxes put in place by the Townsend Acts, except for a duty on tea; a "demonstration of Parliament's ability and right to tax the colonies"("The Boston Tea Party"). This caused patriots across the country to refuse to allow ships of tea to land as a protest of Parliament's unfair taxation on the
In the late 1760s, America was dominated completely by Britain. England viewed the colonies as meek and expected obedience towards whatever arbitrary law or tax that was thrown at them. The taxation tyranny fueled a group of men, known as the Sons of Liberty. Also known as tea-partiers, the group of men were viewed as radicals for their paramount dumping of over 300 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor on December 16th, 1773. The Boston Tea Party defined the independence that the colonists were struggling for. Without this event, an act of defiance this crucial may have never occurred and the colonies may have never have found the strength to become a sprawling, thriving nation. Ultimately, many more revolts, riots and boycotts led to the Revolutionary war. The Boston Tea Party was the trailblazer that induced combat and bloodshed, but the colonists couldn't deal with the oppression any longer. The anti-British uproar made the colonies look stronger and more unified. The dumping of the tea was a turning point in America’s relationship with England. The stand The Sons of Liberty, and the colonists, took showed that “The Land of Liberty” was becoming a strong force to be reckoned with on their
The Tea Act of 1773 was put in place to save the East India Company from going out of business because the British needed them for there economy to work. The American’s that were mostly affected by this act would be the American’s that had business’s because they could not feed their family and their business wasn’t running right at all no one was buying anything from them. The American’s decided that they had had enough and got on ships of the East India Company and thru over 300 chests of tea into the Boston harbor that night. The main point of the Tea act was to help the British and only the British not the colonies at
The Tea Act of 1773 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on May 10, 1773. Under this Act, British East India Company could directly sell their tea in the American colonies compared to selling its tea only in auction in London. Further the duties charged on the tea shipped to American colonies would be waived. (https://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-tea-act) The tea act was one of the crucial act and turning points in the history of American colonies that later led to the revolutionary war. It was series of many acts that sparked the revolutioanlry war. The Tea Act was different because because it showed that colonies valued principles more that money.
The Boston tea party was assembled by the Sons of Liberty on Thursday December 16th 1773 around 7:00 to 10:00 PM put on in front of a crowd of over 5,000 people this was an act of defiance of the Americas to Britain to the Tea Act of 1773, as well as taxation without representation or more well known as the Townshend Act of 1767. However it was just not these two factors which lead them to do this it was also the thought of Britain charging the colonists more for tea, ink, and many other things, in order to pay for the troops fighting in the French and Indian War. So at first Britain was making everyone pay over price on tea so the colonists started smuggling tea from Dutch and other European tea makers. These things violated
The Tea Act angered, and led the colonists wanting independence because the East India Company made their tea really cheap and the British tea stayed expensive as it was before. Parliament made the East India Company tea really cheap, so the colonists would buy their tea, and make the East India Company gain more money from all the tea bought from the colonists. The colonists thought that was unfair so they dumped all eighteen million pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor. This was
The King and the parliament believed to pay back war debts taxes were the only way. The tax that put the most tension on the colonies was in 1767 and it was tax on imported tea.”It has come about through the gathering of the testimony of contemporary witness of undoubted competency and through the researches of many scholars” (Beard 3).The people living in the colonies believed they were not governed by England s didn't have to follow England's tax. The 13 colonies held a convention to try and talk to the British government but they were not being heard. So one night the colonist in Boston Massachusetts decided to go dump the tea on ships into the water. This is one of the most iconic revolts during the time period.The British government would shut down the Boston port to show authority. The colonist did not want to pay the taxes because they felt they were not part of England anymore and England needed someone to pay back the debts.This clearly shows that economics drove the American
The tea act taxed the colonist on imported British tea. The colonist felt that it was unfair for them to be taxed on essential goods such as tea without being represented in parliament. One night the colonist decided to do something about the tea act. It is called the Boston tea party. On December 16, 1773 George Hughes said “...we then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard…” (document 4). Colonist dressed as indians snuck onto a British boat and dumped crates of tea into the Boston harbor as a protest to the tea
The protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The British tea dumped in Boston Harbor on the night of December 16 was valued at some $18,000. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British. “The Turning point was the tea act and the resulting Tea Party in Boston in