On May 10, 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act, the primary objective of which was to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy. It also eliminated all tea tax except the three pence Townshend tax. A third goal of the Tea Act was to offer Americans tea at a lower price than that of the colonial smugglers [1]. However what happened was the average American colonist became angry with this latest act in a long line of unpopular policies, laws, and taxes imposed on him by Britain [2]. A group of colonists in Massachusetts known as the Sons of Liberty decided to respond to this new tax act. Therefore, on December 16, 1773, some of this group disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians and boarded the vessels of the East Indian Company docked in the Boston Harbor. Without damaging the vessel or any other cargo, the group dumped all the tea that was on …show more content…
However, Parliment saw a need to help out the British East India Company, who at the time had the largest surplus of tea on hand and needed help selling it. Parliment did not view this as a punishment to their fellow countrymen in America but as a way increasing revenue to help the British East India Company which in turn would have been beneficial to all involved [3]. Another reason colonists did not approve of the Tea Act is that the Townshend Revenue Act tea tax remained in place. This tax was one of the taxes that insulted the colonists. Since the new Tea Act began the sale of tea by representatives of the British East India Company directly to the American colonies, colonial merchants felt the act illegally granted a monopoly to the British East India Company. Combining this monopoly with the Townshend Revenue Act and it appeared that the Tea Act was a tactic to gain colonial support for the tax already
3. The Tea Act made the East India Company’s tea less expensive than Dutch tea, which encouraged Americans to pay the Townshend duty. 4. Radical Patriots accused the ministry of bribing
The Tea Act of 1773 reinstated the issue of Britain’s right to tax the colonies. The Parliament and the colonies disagreed on a system of government in which the colonies would share the same rights and control as Parliament over their colonial affairs. Between 1773 and 1776, enormous amounts of tension between the center and the peripheries regarding the right to control the colonies led to the disintegration of the empire. The colonies and Parliament continued their dispute about the supremacy of the colonies that began with the Stamp Act of 1765.
The colonists decided not to take any of the taxed tea. When the tea arrived, it was returned to England or put in warehouses. In Boston, the tea company was determined to unload its cargo. The colonists had to act fast. One night, a group of colonists dressed up as Native Americans.
Before Britain passed the tea act research proves. “In March 1765 Britain passed a law called the stamp act that made every colonist pay for taxes on every piece of printed paper they used”(Carr). The colonist was so mad they would take out stamp act agents and later would be incarcerated. The Englishmen didn 't approve of the tax on tea research shows. “ before the dumping of the tea, there was an act made that when tea entered Boston all tea was taxed 3 pence a pound”(Macaulay).
The Tea Act of 1773 once again inflamed the Northern Radicals although it lowered tea prices. The Radicals were afraid Americans might accept the lower tea prices, which would mean they also accepted the duties (taxation without representation), and put many of the founding fathers out of the business of smuggling tea. Throughout the colonies "tea parties" were held where men turned back ships or boarded them and tossed packaged tea into the harbor. The largest in terms of tea dumped into the sea and the number of men participating was in Boston. Although no "tea party" is held in Georgia (no tea was allocated to Savannah), a somewhat symbolic party was held at the harbor in nearby Charles Town, South Carolina, where a single ship bearing tea
In 1771 a group of colonist protested 13 years of increasing oppression, by attacking merchant ships in Boston Harbor. The British in disgust of the attacks retaliated by imposing even harsher penalties through taxes and such. The British adjusted import duties to bolster the troubled east India company that produced the tea and readied it for export to the colonial settlements in America. This was deemed the Tea Act of 1773, consignees in New Yor, Philidelphia and Charleston rejected the shipments of tea from the East India Company because they felt that the British taxation was unfair and that the merchants could not pay the taxation and make a profit off of the imports. Merchants in Boston Conceded to Patriot
This was due to the British government giving the East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade in North America, once again damaging American trade. In response the colonists took part in an event known as the Boston Tea Party, where they dressed up as Native American Indians and dumped the equivalent of nearly 45 tons of tea into the ocean. The British saw this occurrence as an act of immense insolence and in response enforced even harsher policies on the colonies. ‘The destruction of the tea proved the last straw for the British, who believed that they had done everything possible to accommodate the Americans. The only response had been violence, this time against the East India Company, one of the country’s most prestigious corporations…’(middleton, 473).
However, in 1773, the East India Company noticed that there was an overproduction of tea and its prices surely would decline (“The Third Imperial Crisis”). Tea was one of the, if not the, most valuable asset to many members in Parliament. Britain was forced to impose a new Tea tax on the colonists, which was aimed to keep the price of tea high. Even this act was reasonable in the eyes of the British, but to the colonists, this was just a British way of assuring dominance considering it was now for profit rather than to pay off debts. The response to the Tea Acts was the Boston Tea Party of 1773 (“The Third Imperial Crisis”).
They were sending the message that they would not pay taxes on their tea. The British were furious with the actions of the colonists and needed to impose a punishment for their rebellion. This came in the form of the Intolerable Acts. These acts were an attempt by Parliament to gain complete control over the colonists. The culminations of these events led to the breakout of the Revolutionary War just short of two years after the Boston Tea Party.
December 16, 1773. This was the day that American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians threw 342 cases of tea--that belonged to the British East India Company--into the Boston Harbor. The tea weighed more than 10,000 pounds and it completely polluted the harbor. This event became known as the “Boston Tea Party.” When under extreme pressure from different patriot groups, consignees from New York, Philadelphia, etc. refused to accept tea shipments.
The American identity resulted from America’s early British roots and the separation that America experienced from its colonial roots as it emerged as a young nation. The events leading up to the revolution illustrate how deeply America was intertwined with Britain and the rapid escalation of tension between the two, comparatively post-revolutionary America is when America began to truly develop a unique and personalized identity that separated America from from its original British roots. In 1607 the British established their first successful colony in North America, which they christened Jamestown in honor of King James I of England. The newly established colony relied heavily on the British motherland as the colonists were unaccustomed to
The Boston Tea Party was a violent, courageous, and an eventful act that took place in 1997 because of constant disputes. It started to become a large issue when the British and English colonist constantly disagreed about the unfair taxes that were charged from the British. The colonists didn’t agree to the taxes at all the the government officials formed a plan. The British put such a hefty tax on the tea because they realized the demand was so outrageously high, and they could make a much larger profit off of it. Colonists did not want to pay the huge taxes, so they started buying/smuggling tea from East India, but the British wanted to have the colonists to buy tea from them because of the taxes.
Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government After the Stamp act was passed the colonists did not sit there with thier arms crossed. The colonists decided that they needed to fight back. On December 16, 1773, a group of most likely 70 men boarded on three British ships in the Boston harbor, disguised as Mohawk Indians . The men decided to take British tea cargo and throw into the sea. The tea cargo was schockingly worth 18,000 pounds.
The French-Indian War of 1754-1763 resulted in political, ideological, and economic alterations within Britain and its American colonies. The French and Indian War, also referred to as The Seven Years War, began with British and French conflicts across the Ohio River Valley, as both nations wanted to claim the land for themselves. The first blood of the French-Indian War began with multiple British failures, including Washington’s dreadful defeat at Fort Necessity and General Braddock’s failed attempt at conquering Fort Duquesne, in which he died along with two-thirds of his army (Document C). The British would, however, gain momentum in 1759 with multiple victories, including their most significant triumph, Quebec.
and they too were attacked so they had to fire into the mob. Parliament passed the Tea Act, which gave the British East Indians company a complete monopoly of the American tea business meaning the colonists could only buy tea from this company. The colonists opposed this law even though it lowered the price of tea. They viewed the tea Act as merely another example