SONS OF LIBERTY GIVE A TEA PARTY
Members of the group, disguised as Mohawk Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea from three ships of the British tea company docked in Boston Harbor. The ships sailed into the city in November and were ordered by Governor Thomas Hutchinson to remain "tied up" at Griffin's Wharf.
"This destruction...is so bold, so daring, so firm...it must have important consequences."**
**The Boston Tea Party led to the passage of the Coercive Acts, known in the Colonies as the Intolerable Acts, which punished the city of Boston and the colony of Massachusetts for the deed. Both the Tea Party and Coercive Acts were important causes leading to the outbreak of the American Revolution.
Boston, Massachusetts (JFK+50) On December 16, 1773, Sons of Liberty here in Boston gave a tea party in protest of the British Parliament's Tea Act of 1773. The legislation gave a monopoly on the sale of tea in the American colonies to the British East India Company.*
Members of the group, disguised as Mohawk Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea from three ships of the British tea company docked in Boston Harbor. The ships sailed into the city in November and were ordered by Governor Thomas Hutchinson to remain "tied up" at Griffin's Wharf.
Thomas Fleming writes that about fifty men boarded the ships on the night of December 16, 1773 followed by a large crowd. The "indians" broke apart the chests and shoveled the loose tea into the harbor.
It was over in three hours. Nothing was harmed but the tea, and future POTUS John Adams wrote that there was a "dignity and majesty" about the event. He added...
"This destruction...is so bold, so daring, so firm...it must have important consequences."**
*While the tea act lowered the price of tea, it maintained the tax and forced the colonists, in buying the tea with the tax included, to accept the principle of taxation by Parliament. Americans drank 1.2 million pounds of tea annually with 275,000 pounds imported from England & 925,000 pounds smuggled in from Holland.
**The Boston Tea Party led to the passage of the Coercive Acts, known in the Colonies as the Intolerable Acts, which punished the city of Boston and the colony of Massachusetts for the deed. Both the Tea Party and Coercive Acts were important causes leading to the outbreak of the American Revolution.
SOURCE
"Liberty! The American Revolution," by Thomas Fleming, Viking Publishers, 1997.
Visit to Boston Tea Party Museum
Boston, Massachusetts
October 1987
