The Boston Tea Party
342 chests of East India Company tea thrown into Boston harbour, in a protest that was not about a tax increase — the Tea Act had made the tea cheaper.
16 December 1773
Fixed by record. A surviving record fixes this to the year.
Documented. Attested in the historical record, and sourced to it.
The version that circulates
That the protest was against a new or increased tax on tea.
What the evidence carries. That the Tea Act LOWERED the landed price of legal tea. The objection was to the principle of Parliament taxing the colonies without representation, and — a motive usually left out — to a monopoly consignment arrangement that would have undercut colonial merchants, including those handling smuggled Dutch tea. A cheaper product was destroyed over who had the right to tax it and who would profit from selling it.
What happened
Following the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea directly into the American colonies, a crowd boarded three ships and destroyed the tea cargo. Parliament responded with the Coercive Acts, closing the port of Boston.
Why it matters
It is the point at which tea becomes politically toxic in what became the United States, and it is a substantial part of why American drinking habits diverged from British ones. Coffee's position in American life has a good deal to do with what happened to tea's.
Who was involved
The Sons of Liberty
communityOrganised the destruction of the cargo
The English East India Company
companyOwner of the tea; the Tea Act was designed to relieve its financial crisis
The British Parliament
statePassed the Tea Act 1773 and, in response, the Coercive Acts
Connected events
- 1784 — The Commutation Act ends the smuggling economy
- Recipes from the mid-nineteenth century; the fair was in 1904 — Iced tea and the 1904 World's Fair
What this touches
Producing countries
Compiled from published sources by people who are not historians of this region or period. Where accounts conflict the disagreement is reported rather than settled.