Remembering: The Boston Tea Party

Tensions were high in the American colonies, as the colonists grew increasingly angry over British taxation.

In 1773, the Tea Act gave the British East India Company a near monopoly on tea, by lowering the taxes the company had to pay.

Due to that the company was able to under cut anyone else's prices.

Throughout the colonies the Sons of Liberty reacted by threatening captain's who brought tea in, with tar and feathering.

Then the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver sailed into Boston Harbor.

The Sons of Liberty demanded that they be sent back to England, without unloading, but Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson refused their demands.

On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of around sixty colonists, organized by Samuel Adams, dressed as Mohawk Indians and climbed aboard the ships, and dumped the tea into the harbor.

By the time they were done, they had dumped what would now be worth about seven hundred thousand dollars worth of tea.

Britain responded by passing the Coercive Acts, in 1774, which established military rule over Boston.

Soon thereafter the colonies formed the first Continental Congress, and the path towards independence was paved.