In response, the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed a shipment of tea sent by the East India Company.

The well-connected East India Company also had been granted competitive advantages over colonial tea importers, who resented the move and feared additional infringement on their business.

The Boston Tea Party was a significant event that helped accelerate and intensify colonial support for the American Revolution.

The crisis escalated, leading to the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, which marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.

[5] The moniker "Boston Tea Party" gained popularity in the early 19th century as the event took on a legendary status in American history.

The name succinctly captures the combination of locality (Boston), the commodity involved (tea), and the nature of the event (a political 'party' or gathering as a form of protest).

The North Ministry's attempt to resolve these issues produced a showdown that eventually resulted in the Revolution, the associated War of Independence, and ultimately the end of British colonialization and the emergence of the United States as a sovereign nation.

[7] As Europeans developed a taste for tea in the 17th century, rival companies were formed to import the product from China, which was then governed by the Qing dynasty.

British firms bought this tea and exported it to the colonies, where they resold it to merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.

[26] The act also restored the tea taxes within Britain that had been repealed in 1767, and left in place the three pence Townshend duty in the colonies, equal to £1.61 today.

The East India Company initially sought to have the Townshend duty repealed, but the North ministry was unwilling because such an action might be interpreted as a retreat from Parliament's position that it had the right to tax the colonies.

[32] Another possible solution for reducing the growing mound of tea in the East India Company warehouses was to sell it cheaply in Europe.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer William Dowdeswell, for example, warned Lord North that the Americans would not accept the tea if the Townshend duty remained.

[44] In September and October 1773, seven ships carrying East India Company tea were sent to the colonies: four were bound for Boston, and one each for New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.

Benjamin Rush urged his fellow countrymen to oppose the landing of the tea, because the cargo contained "the seeds of slavery".

Meanwhile, the meeting assigned twenty-five men to watch the ship and prevent the tea – including a number of chests from Davison, Newman and Co. of London – from being unloaded.

On December 16 – the last day of Dartmouth's deadline – approximately 5,000[66]–7,000[67] people out of an estimated population of 16,000[66] had gathered around the Old South Meeting House.

After receiving a report that Governor Hutchinson had again refused to let the ships leave, Adams announced that "This meeting can do nothing further to save the country."

[70] While disguising their individual faces was imperative, because of the illegality of their protest, dressing as Mohawk warriors was a specific and symbolic choice.

[71] That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men, some dressed in the Mohawk warrior disguises, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water.

[better source needed] The property damage amounted to the destruction of 92,000 pounds (42,000 kg) or 340 chests of tea, reported by the British East India Company worth £9,659 (equivalent to £1,550,322 in 2023[74]), or roughly $1,700,000 in today's money.

[77][78] Whether or not Samuel Adams helped plan the Boston Tea Party is disputed, but he immediately worked to publicize and defend it.

[79] He argued that the Tea Party was not the act of a lawless mob, but was instead a principled protest and the only remaining option the people had to defend their constitutional rights.

[80] John Adams, Samuel's second cousin and likewise a Founding Father, wrote in his diary on December 17, 1773, that the Boston Tea Party proved a historical moment in the American Revolution, writing: This is the most magnificent Movement of all.

This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, and so lasting, that I cant but consider it as an Epocha in History.

[82] The British government felt this action could not remain unpunished, and responded by closing the port of Boston and putting in place other laws known as the "Intolerable Acts".

[85] A number of colonists were inspired by the Boston Tea Party to carry out similar acts, such as the burning of Peggy Stewart.

This began to change in the 1830s, however, especially with the publication of biographies of George Robert Twelves Hewes, one of the few still-living participants of the "tea party", as it then became known.

When Mohandas Gandhi led a mass burning of Indian registration cards in South Africa in 1908, a British newspaper compared the event to the Boston Tea Party.

[101] In the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed III, the Boston Tea Party is retold through a main story mission in Sequence 6.