Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party set off a chain of events that led eventually to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) and the creation of the United States. The "party" was carried out in reaction to Parliament's Tea Act (May 10, 1773). At the time, the East India Company, which controlled British affairs in India, was on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to aid the company, the British government granted it a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies. The East India Company would select a limited group of colonial merchants to sell the tea in North America. From the British perspective, this legislation solved several problems. Previously, most tea sold in the colonies was smuggled from the Dutch since the East India Company tea had to be imported first to Great Britain, where a duty would be paid, and then to the colonies, where more taxes (the one remaining Townshend duty) were due. The Tea Act would raise much-needed revenue for the East India Company since the tea could be exported directly to the colonies without paying any customs charges in England. The East India Company would benefit, and the British Empire in India would be secured. Since the tea under the Tea Act would be cheaper than smuggled tea, colonists would, the British believed, eagerly buy it and pay the Townshend duty, thereby implicitly accepting parliamentary supremacy. The colonists would also gain from the measure since tea would be cheaper and colonial merchants would be the agents of the East India Company.

This seemingly win-win scenario, however, did not work out as the British hoped. The act angered the colonial merchants who would not be East India Company agents and who would no longer be able to profit from smuggling. Many other colonial Americans viewed the law within the context of nearly a decade of resistance to imperial regulation and the ideology of republicanism. These individuals believed that the granting of any monopoly--even one that lowered prices--would corrupt... [continues]

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