Boston Tea Party

Boston Tea Party, popular name for the action taken on December 16, 1773, by a group of Boston citizens to protest against the British tax on tea imported to the colonies. Although most provisions of the Townshend Acts, taxing imports to the colonies, were repealed by Parliament, the duty on tea was retained to maintain the principle of the right of Parliament to tax the colonies. The citizens of Boston would not permit the unloading of three British ships that arrived in Boston in November 1773 with 342 chests of tea. The royal governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, however, would not let the tea ships return to England until the duty had been paid. On the evening of December 16, a group of Bostonians, instigated by the American patriot Samuel Adams and many of them disguised as Native Americans, boarded the vessels and emptied the tea into Boston harbour. When the government of Boston refused to pay for the tea, the British closed the port.