The Boston Tea Party

When I first came across the fact that American Colonists in 1773 threw hundreds of pounds of tea into the Boston Harbor, I thought, why? Why would you waste so much tea, about a million dollars worth. Well, the reason wasn’t simple. And the result wasn’t either. But somehow, chucking that tea helped make the United States independent.

Stamp Act

When the pilgrims first came to America, they were still under British rule. Since they were still loyal to their king, they weren’t rebelling yet. Being subjects of the king, they wanted to have representation in the British Parliament. However, the king didn’t agree, so the idea was shut down. The British wanted to have control over the colonialists, and make money, so they passed something called the Stamp Act. This required the colonists to pay tax to England on all documents, such as newspaper, legal documents, ship papers, and even playing cards. Hence the phrase “taxation without representation.”

While tax was not collected for importing tea, the British wanted to charge importation fee. The colonists didn’t like this, and many ports along the border were shut down. The port in Boston, Massachusetts was not, though, because their governor was loyal to Britain. Three tea ships were allowed to come, and the governor told the Bostonians to pay the import tax and haul the tea off the ships. The Bostonians refused, so the tea sat there on the ships for a month.

One night, a group of about 70 men disguised as Native Americans boarded the ships and proceeded to throw the crates of tea off the ship into the Boston harbor in protest. This greatly upset the British, so they passed laws called the Intolerable Acts to punish Boston. These laws only helped the colonists come together to resist British rule, leading to the great Revolutionary War, which made The United States of America, the independent country we are. The Boston Tea Party, although controversial at the time, became known as one of the prominent events in American history.

When I was in 4th grade, our school playground was a tiny play structure enclosed in a fence. Even though there was a grassy area just beyond the fenced area, the teachers would not allow us to go outside of the fence. My friends and I thought it was very unreasonable and unfair. And we wanted to do something about it. If we had done it like it was the Boston Tea Party, we would’ve climbed over that fence and stood there, protesting against the unfair policies. But, as always, boycotting and protesting has many consequences. So we wrote a petition and had everyone in our class sign it, and we ended up being able to have all the space we wanted to, for the first time in our school's history.

"Boston Tea Party." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Sonia Benson, Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., and Rebecca Valentine. Vol. 1. Detroit: UXL, 2009. 182-184. Research in Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.

"Boston Tea Party." Gale Research in Context. N.p., 2009. Web. 3 Feb. 2016.

<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?inPS=true&prodId=MSIC&userGroupName=catlin&resultListType=RELATED_DOCUMENT&searchType=ts&contentSegment=&docId=GALE|CX3048900082&it=r>.

http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-boston-tea-party-intolerable-acts-first-continental-congress.html#lesson

https://www.history.org/history/teaching/tchcrsta.cfm

http://www.britannica.com/event/Townshend-Acts