The Tea Act, was passed on May 10, 1773 by the British Parliament, allowing the British East India Company Tea to tax tea sales in the American colonies following the repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act in 1770.  The Townshend Revenue Act, which was passed in 1767, was designed to collect revenue from the colonies through duties on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea.   The new provisions of the Tea Act allowed tea to be shipped in East India Company ships directly from China to the American colonies, avoiding the tax on goods first sent to England.  The import tax of 3 pence was less than the previous tax of 12 pence on tea sent by Britain.  The tea was to be marketed in America by merchants, who were selected by the East India Company, to act as middlemen for shipments to Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, and New York.  These merchants were often the ones losing their business to the East India Company because of the lower tax rates.   The lower tax rates were also impacting shop keepers who were only allowed to buy tea from the East India Company merchants. Only ships owned by the East India Company could carry tea, the American ships engaging in the tea trade would be redundant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The colonists, inspired by the writings of authors such as John Dickinson, Samuel Adams, protested against the taxes, leading the British Parliament to repeal all the duties, except tea.  Parliament retained the tax to show it had a right to tax the colonies and to help the British East India tea company out of debt but the colonists saw it as another exmple of "taxation without representation." The colonists successfully prevented the delivery of taxed tea in Philadelphia and New York but met resistance in Boston.  Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to let the ships leave without paying the tax and a group of Sons of Liberty members, including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians, boarded the ships, and dumped 92,000 pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773.

 

The Sons of Liberty also organized other revolts against the British

government.   Public meetings were held - and everyone hearing

about the Tea Act would have strong Anti-British attitudes.

Americans decided they would continue to boycott tea from

the British and anyone who helped in “unloading, receiving,

or vending”  the tea was an enemy to the colonies.   Colonists

were preventing the landing and sale of tea- they wanted the

tea to be sent back to England.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boston Tea Party caused considerable damage and infuriated the British Parliament.  The East India Company had millions of pounds of tea in its London warehouses and was on the verge of bankruptcy.  Parliament responded to the rebellion with the Coercive Acts of 1774, also known as the the Intolerable Acts.  This Act closed the port of           Boston until the colonists reimbursed the cost of the destroyed tea.  Parliament also chose General Thomas Gage, the Commander in Chief of British forces in North America, as the governor of Massachusetts.  As a result, colonial resistance in the colonies intensified, until three years after Parliament passed the Tea Act, when the colonies won the American Revolution and declared their independence from Britain as the United States of America.