This Day in History:, The Boston Tea Party.
December 16, 1773.
A group of Massachusetts
colonists disguised as members
of the Mohawk tribe boarded
three British tea ships in Boston Harbor.
They dumped 342 chests
of tea — valued at $18,000 —
into the harbor in protest of the
British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773.
Colonists viewed the act
as another example of
British taxation tyranny.
Outraged, British Parliament enacted
the Coercive Acts, also known as
the Intolerable Acts in 1774.
Boston was closed to merchant
shipping, and a formal British military
rule was established in Massachusetts.
British officials were deemed immune to
criminal prosecution in America. Colonists
were required to quarter British troops.
In response, the colonists called the
first Continental Congress to consider a
united American resistance to the British