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Boston Tea Party

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Boston Tea Party was a protest by the ----:\~}

American colonists against Great Britain in which ·1~1:
they destroyed many crates of tea on ships in Boston
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Harbor. The incident, which took place on
Thursday, December 16, 1773, has been seen as !:'.
helping to spark the American Revolution.
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Contents I
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ll!l I Background I
~ 2 The Boston Tea Party I
This 1846 lithograph has become a classic image of the
l!ll 3 The Reaction ! Boston Tea Party.
!, ra 4 External Iinks
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Background
The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 angered colonists regarding British decisions on
taxing the colonies with no representation in the Westminster Parliament ("no taxation without
representation"). One of the protesters was John Hancock. In 1768, John Hancock's ship Liberty was seized
by customs officials and he was charged with smuggling. He was defended by John Adams and the charges
were eventually dropped. However, Hancock later faced several hundred more indictments.

Hancock organized a boycott of tea from China sold by the British East India Company, whose sales in the
colonies then fell from 320,000lb to 520lb. By 1773, the company had large debts, huge stocks of tea in its
warehouses and no prospect of selling it because smugglers such as Hancock were importing tea without
paying taxes (import tax). The British government passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India
Company to sell tea to the colonies directly, thereby allowing them to sell for lower prices than those offered
by the colonial merchants and smugglers.

The ships carrying tea were prevented from landing as most American ports turned the tea away. In Boston,
however, the East India Company had the help of the British-appointed governor - plans were made to
bring in - by force - the tea under the protection given by British armed ships.

The Boston Tea Party

On Thursday, December 16, 1773, the evening before the tea
was supposed to be landed, the Sons of Liberty, three groups
of 50 Boston residents each organized by Samuel Adams, burst from the Old South Meeting House and
headed toward Griffin's Wharf, dressed as Mohawks. Three ships -the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the
Beaver - were loaded with hundreds of crates of tea. The men boarded the ships and began destroying the
cargo. By 9pm they had opened 342 crates of tea in all three ships and had thrown them into Boston Harbor.
They took off their shoes, swept the decks, and made each ship's first mate agree to say that the Sons of
Liberty had destroyed only the tea. The whole event was remarkably quiet and peaceful. The next day, they
sent someone around to fix the one padlock they had broken.

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Boston Tea Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pagina 2 de 2

The Reaction
This act brought criticism from both colonial and British
officials. For instance, Benjamin Franklin stated that the
destroyed tea must be repaid and offered to repay with his
own money. The British government responded harshly by
closing the port of Boston and put in place other laws that
were known as the "Intolerable Acts", also called the
Coercive Acts. This act proved to be one of those that led to
the American Revolution. At the very least, the Boston Tea
Party and the reaction that followed served to rally support 1789 engraving
for revolutionaries in the thirteen colonies who were
eventually successful in their fight for independence.

External links
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rm The Boston Tea Party Historical Society Wikimedia Commons has media
(http://www.boston-tea-party.org/) related to: 1·

Boston Tea Party

Retrieved from I

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Categories: Pre-revolutionary history of the United States I American Revolution I Rebellions in the United
States

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