Patriot leader Samuel Adams staged the 'tea party' with roughly 60 supporters of the Sons of Liberty, his hidden rebel unit after Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson declined.
On December 16, 1773, American patriots dressed as Mohawk Indians threw 342 chests of tea owing to the British East India Company from ships into Boston Harbor. The Americans were opposing both a tea tax (taxation without representation) and the East India Company's alleged monopoly.
The Townshend Acts, enacted by Parliament in 1767 and imposing tasks on various goods shipped into
British colonies, sparked such a storm of colonial opposition and non-compliance that they were repealed in 1770, except the tea obligation, which Parliament retained to
demonstrate its assumed right to increase colonial earnings without colonial permission. By continuing to accept tea brought in by Dutch sellers, Boston merchants were able to get past the law.
In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the East India Company a monopoly on all tea shipped to the colonies, a protections from the export tax, and a 'drawback' (refund) on obligations imposed on certain surplus quantities of tea in its possession to help the financially troubled company. To discourage independent colonial importers and dealer, the tea shipped to the colonies had only to be transported on board East India Company ships and distributed through East India Company agents. As a result, the corporation could offer the tea for a lower price in either
America or the United Kingdom; it could undercut anybody else. Fear of monopoly drove mainly conservative colonial merchants to band up with nationalists led by Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty.
Tea agents quit or cancelled orders in locations including New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, while retailers denied consignments. In Boston, however, royal governor Thomas Hutchinson was concerned about enforcing the law, requiring that the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver, three arriving ships, be allowed to unload their cargo and that correct duty be paid. A group of roughly 60 men covered in blankets and Indian headdresses proceeded to Griffin's Wharf on the night of December 16, 1773, boarded the ships, and dumped the tea chests into the water, helped by a huge throng of Bostonians.
In retribution, Parliament issued the Intolerable Acts, which included the Boston Port Bill, which halted the city's maritime trade until payment for the lost tea. The
British government's attempts to punish Massachusetts only helped to unite the colonies and accelerate the march toward war.