The Boston Tea Party
| Boston Tea Party | |||
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| Part of the American Revolution | |||
Source: W.D. Cooper. "Boston Tea Party.", The History of North America. London: E. Newberry, 1789. Engraving. Plate opposite p. 58. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (40)
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| Date | 16 December 1773 | ||
| Location | Boston, Massachusetts, British America | ||
| Caused by | Tea Act | ||
| Goals | To protest British Parliament's tax on tea. "No taxation without representation." | ||
| Methods | Throw the tea into Boston Harbor | ||
| Resulted in | Intolerable Acts | ||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
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 Booknotes interview with Alfred Young on The Shoemaker and the Tea Party, November 21, 1999, C-SPAN
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Coordinates: 42°21′13″N 71°03′09″W / 42.3536°N 71.0524°W
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution. The Tea Party became an iconic event of American history, and since then other political protests such as the Tea Party movement have referred to themselves as historical successors to the Boston protest of 1773.
The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act because they believed that it violated their rights as Englishmen to "No taxation without representation", that is, be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a British parliament in which they were not represented. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain.
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