Sunday Times

Boston Tea Party

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On December 16 1773 between 30 and 130 members of revolution­ary Samuel Adams’s secret organisati­on Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Mohawks, board three British East India Tea Company ships and dump 342 chests of British tea (more than 92,000 pounds valued at £18,000) into the Boston Harbor. Known as the Boston Tea Party, the midnight raid is a protest against the Tea Act of 1773, a bill enacted by the British parliament to save the faltering British East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allows the company to sell its tea cheaper than that smuggled into the country by Dutch traders. Many colonists viewed the act as yet another example of Britain’s taxation tyranny. Reacting to the Boston Tea Party, the British attempt to punish Boston and the whole colony of Massachuse­tts with the Intolerabl­e Acts of 1774 — another in the series of events that ultimately leads to American independen­ce

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