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The Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party was an act of direct action protest by the American colonists against the British Government in which they destroyed many crates of tea belonging to the British East India Company and dumped it in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took place on December 16, 1773, was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution and remains an iconic event of American history.

As Europeans developed a taste for tea in the 17th century, rival companies were formed to import the product from the East Indies. In 1698, the Parliament of Great Britain gave the British East India Company a monopoly on the importation of tea into Great Britain. When tea became popular in the British colonies in North America, Parliament sought to eliminate foreign competition by passing an act in 1721 that required colonists to import their tea only from Great Britain. Because Parliament heavily taxed this tea, both Britons and British Americans found that it was much cheaper to buy smuggled tea, which usually came from Dutch sources—tea imported into Holland was not taxed by the Dutch government. The biggest market for smuggled tea was England, but illicit tea was also smuggled into the colonies to a lesser extent.

Tensions between Great Britain and the American colonies arose in the 1760s when Parliament sought, for the first time, to directly tax the colonies for the purpose of raising revenue. Colonists argued that, according to the British Constitution, British subjects could be taxed only by their own representatives; because the colonies were not represented in Parliament, they could not be taxed by that body. Colonists organized economic boycotts against the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767. By 1773, the British East India Company was in financial distress due in part to the colonial boycotts.

In response to this, the British government passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies directly and without "payment of any customs or duties whatsoever" in Britain, instead paying the much lower American duty. This tax break allowed the East India Company to sell tea for half the old price and cheaper than the price of tea in England, enabling them to undercut the prices offered by the colonial merchants and smugglers.

Many American colonists, particularly the wealthy smugglers, resented this favored treatment of a major company, which employed lobbyists and wielded great influence in Parliament. Protests resulted in both Philadelphia and New York, but it was those in Boston that made their mark in history. Still reeling from the Hutchinson letters, Bostonians suspected the selective removal of the Tea Tax was simply another attempt by the British parliament to squash American freedom. Samuel Adams, smugglers, and others called for agents and consignees of the East India Company tea to abandon their positions; consignees who hesitated were terrorized through attacks on their warehouses and even their homes.

The first of many ships which arrived at the Boston harbor carrying the East India Company tea was Dartmouth arriving in late November 1773. A standoff ensued between the port authorities and the Sons of Liberty. Samuel Adams whipped up the growing crowd by demanding a series of protest meetings. Coming from both the city and outlying areas, thousands attended these meetings; every meeting larger than the one before. The crowds shouted defiance not only at the British Parliament, the East India Company, and Dartmouth but at Governor Thomas Hutchinson as well, who was still struggling to have the tea landed. On the night of December 16, the protest meeting, held at Boston's Old South Meeting House, was the largest yet seen. An estimated 8,000 people were said to have tipped the tea.

The owner of the Dartmouth and its captain agreed that the tea would be returned to England and similar promises were obtained from the owners of two more vessels en route, the Eleanor and the Beaver. However, Governor Hutchinson ordered the harbor to be blocked and he would not allow any tea-bearing vessels to leave until they had been unloaded. King George III was furious.

On Thursday, December 16, 1773, the evening before the tea was due to be landed, Captain Roach appealed to Governor Hutchinson to allow his ship to leave without unloading its tea. When Roach returned and reported Hutchinson's refusal to a massive protest meeting, Samuel Adams said to the assembly "This meeting can do nothing more to save the country". As though on cue, the Sons of Liberty thinly disguised as either Mohawk or Narragansett Indians and armed with small hatchets and clubs, headed toward Griffin's Wharf (in Boston Harbor), where lay Dartmouth and the newly-arrived Beaver and Eleanor. Swiftly and efficiently, casks of tea were brought up from the hold to the deck, reasonable proof that some of the "Indians" were, in fact, longshoremen. The casks were opened and the tea dumped overboard; the work, lasting well into the night, was quick, thorough, and efficient. By dawn, over 342 casks or 90,000 lbs (45 tons) of tea worth an estimated £10,000 or $1.87 million USD in 2007 currency) had been consigned to waters of Boston harbor. Nothing else had been damaged or stolen, except a single padlock accidentally broken and anonymously replaced not long thereafter.

Tea washed up on the shores around Boston for weeks. Many citizens of Boston attempted to carry off this tea. In an effort to thwart this looting, people rowed several small boats out to where the tea was visible and beat it with oars, rendering it unusable.

The fourth East India Company ship carrying tea did not arrive with the other three because it had run aground in Provincetown. All fifty-eight tea chests were salvaged and put onto a fishing schooner, which arrived safely in Boston and into Bostonians' teapots.

The tea party caused a crisis. Hutchison had been urging London to take a hard line with the Sons of Liberty. If he had done what the other royal governors had done and let the ship owners and captains resolve the issue with the colonists, the Dartmouth, Eleanor, the "William" and the Beaver would have left without unloading any tea. Lord North said that if the colonists had stuck with nonimportation for another six months the tea tax would have been repealed. In February, 1775, Britain passed the Conciliatory Resolution which ended taxation for any colony which satisfactorily provided for the imperial defense and the upkeep of imperial officers. The Tea Act was repealed with the Taxation of Colonies Act 1778.

In Britain, even those politicians considered friends of the colonies were appalled and this act united all parties there against the colonies. The Prime Minister Lord North said, "Whatever may be the consequence, we must risk something; if we do not, all is over". The British government felt this was an action which could not be unpunished and responded by closing the port of Boston and put in place other laws known as the "Coercive Acts".
In the colonies, Benjamin Franklin stated that the destroyed tea must be repaid, all 70,000 pounds. Robert Murray, a New York merchant went to Lord North with three other merchants and offered to pay for the losses, but the offer was turned down. A number of colonists were inspired to carry out similar acts, such as the burning of the Peggy Stewart. The Boston Tea Party eventually proved to be one of the many catalysts which led to the American Revolutionary War. At the very least, the Boston Tea Party and the reaction that followed served to rally support for revolutionaries in the thirteen colonies who were eventually successful in their fight for independence.

Many colonists, in Boston and elsewhere in the country, pledged to abstain from tea drinking as a protest, turning instead to "Balsamic hyperion" (made from raspberry leaves), other herbal infusions, and coffee. This social protest movement away from tea drinking, however, was not long-lived.

The Boston Tea Party is known around the world and has been inspirational to other noted activists and reform leaders. For example, Erik H. Erikson records in his book "Gandhi's Truths" that when Mahatma Gandhi met with the British viceroy in 1930 after the Indian salt protest campaign, Gandhi took some duty-free salt from his shawl and said, with a smile, that the salt was "to remind us of the famous Boston Tea Party."

American political activists have invoked the Tea Party as a symbol of rebellion against the establishment. A political party founded in 2006 has adopted the name. And, in the 2008 presidential race, a moneybomb fundraiser for candidate Ron Paul held on December 16, 2007 raised over $6.0 million, at the time a single-day record for contributions to a US presidential candidate.

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