THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

by Scott C. Waring


THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

England was pushing big taxes on the colonies without representation. The people of the colonies, who began saying 'no taxation without representation', did not like this. As a way of fighting, a sailor, John Hancock, who was the first to start to openly fight, refused to give money to tax people for his ship carrying tea and entered America. He was called a smuggler and they took his ship. This made many Americans angry. British tea sales started loosing money. This started a big loss for the East India Company, which was the only allowed company to sell anything in the American colonies.

England, to help the East India Company, stopped all taxes on tea sold by the company in the colonies. By this, the British wanted to weaken the work of people like Hancock. The colonists, who feared that their trading of things would be hurt, again disliked this. They started supporting the American people to prevent any tea from the East India Company from coming into America. They had a problem in getting this in Boston, where the British governor sent some soldiers to help to send the tea.

Then on December 16, 1773, a group of 60 people got onto a ship that was carrying tea into the ship port. They destroyed all the 342 boxes, by throwing all the tea into the Boston River. The colonists, too, strangely, did not like this action. The British were angry at this protest. In seeking revenge, the British closed the shipping port of Boston. The colonists called the port, the biggest cup of tea in history!

This event was felt in all the colonies. This is said to be the most important moment of protest by the American colonists. The colonists became more and more angry about this. They soon became brave in their anger at England. This was the start of many events that soon led to America's war against England, and the then the winning of independence from England.