Boston Tea Party
March 1st, 2009Who could have ever imagined that tea will one day serve as part of the recipe for a nation’s revolution? A new nation that will not only grow to become independent, but in time also the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. It all started with a few acts of defiance. This is the story of the Boston Tea Party.
Why it Happened
During the 17th century tea became very popular in Europe. In 1698 the Parliament of Great Britain gave the British East India Company, a main importer of tea into Great Britain, complete control over the importation of tea from India and China. As it is usually the case with prices on products controlled by monopolies, tea became very expensive, but this new prices didn’t mean much to the American colonies until tea also became popular in North America and the British Parliament passed another act in 1721 that limited the importation of tea into the Americas from only one source: Great Britain. So it all boils down to money. Those who drank tea in North America soon realized that they could get much better prices if they bought smuggled tea from the Dutch. Unlike British shipments, tea imported into Holland was not taxed by the government, so by the time it made it to the new continent the price was relatively much cheaper than the tea coming from Great Britain. Still this wasn’t enough to cause a lot of commotion. After all, most of the tea smuggling happened in Great Britain.
Taxing the American Colonies
In the 1760’s the British government decided that, for the first time, it was going to directly tax American colonies with the purpose of making revenue. A measure adopted by the British government due to its increasing national debt during the Seven Years War. The American colonies, however, did not like the new taxes and found it to be unfair since they were not represented in British Parliament. This meant they had no direct saying in British government affairs. The colonies fought the taxes by boycotting the Stamp Act of 1765, which was passed by the Parliament of Great Britain and it required all legal documents, commercial contracts, wills, newspapers, etc. to carry a tax stamp; and the Townshend Acts starting in 1767, which among other things established the right of British Parliament to tax the American colonies. The British East India Company eventually found itself in financial problems. Of course, the boycotts in North America were of no help to its survival. The American colonies were smuggling approximately 900,000 pounds of a lower quality tea and buying only 562,000 pounds a year from the British East India Company.
An Unfair Deal
In order to help the British East India Company boost its sales, the British Parliament past the Tea Act of 1773. The solution was to allow the British East India Company to sell tea directly to the American colonies without having to first pay taxes to the British government. The company would still have to pay the import tax established by the Townshend Acts, but this duty was nothing compared to the 400,000 pounds the company was paying back in London every year. It was at this point that things started getting violent. The wealthy Americans who depended on tea smuggling to make an income were upset with the British government and the preferential treatment towards the British East India Company. It is at this point that Samuel Adams, a statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, together with the wealthy smugglers started demanding the abandonment of certain positions held by agents and consignees of the East India Company. If their demands didn’t seem to persuade employees, warehouses and even homes were terrorized.
One of the first ships to arrive at the Boston Harbor carrying tea from the East India Company was Dartmouth. Samuel Adams organized several protest meetings, each one larger than the previous one, and reaching into the thousands of attendees. On one particular occasion around 8,000 protesters showed up at the Old South Meeting House in Boston and it was because of this last event that the captain and owner of the Dartmouth agreed to return the tea to the East India Company in England. There were two other ships that agreed to return the tea back to England. However, Governor Hutchinson ordered the blocking of any vessel trying to leave the harbor until they had unloaded their tea.
The Day
Boston Tea Party
On Thursday, December 16, 1773, Captain Roach had a meeting with Governor Hutchinson to allow his ship to leave the harbor without unloading the tea. Hutchinson refused the captain’s request and once the news got to Samuel Adams, he realized protest meetings were not going to be enough to persuade the government to not accept tea from the East India Company and instead more dramatic actions should be taken. The Sons of Liberty, a secret organization of American patriots, disguised themselves as Mohawk and Narragansett Indians and headed towards the harbor where the Dartmouth and other tea carrying ships were anchored. The group quickly opened casks and dumped the tea overboard. Damages totaled approximately 1.2 million USD and nothing but tea was destroyed. Tea washed on the shores for many weeks as citizens tried to rescue it.
The Aftermath
As a consequence of the Boston Tea Party, Britain passed the Conciliatory Resolution, which ended taxation for any colony who provided for the imperial defense and upkeep of imperial officers. The Tea Act was repealed with the Taxation of Colonies Act of 1778.
Benjamin Franklin, also one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, stated that the destroyed tea must be repaid in full. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Lord North, decided the acts of the Americans could not go unpunished and put in place laws known as the Coercive Acts. One of the acts, the Boston Port Act, closed the port of Boston until the East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists argued that the whole of Boston was being punished due to the acts of just a few and that they were being punished without having the opportunity to testify in their own defense.
Eventually the Boston Tea Party would cause the propagation of coffee drinking and also become one of the many acts that launched a revolution and gave passage to the creation of the United States.