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

What happened prior to the American Revolution?

Two powerful events that happened prior to the American revolution are the Boston Massacre, and the Boston tea party. The Boston Massacre happened first. During the boston Massacre, five unarmed colonists were killed by the British military. This was a huge deal because there is no reason for for the British, who had the most powerful army in the world at the time, to kill unarmed civilians. This was considered considered one of the most important events that turned colonial sentiment against King George III and British Parliamentary authority.  
The boston tea party happened only a few years later. It all started with the tea act. In the tea act, the british made it so you can only buy british tea, which was taxed. Colonists weren’t very happy, because they didn’t agree with taxation. They wanted to stop all taxation. That started the boston tea party. In the Boston Tea Party Colonists, who were disguised as native Americans attacked 3 ships and destroyed all of the tea. It took nearly three hours for more than colonists to empty the tea into Boston Harbor. The chests held more than 90,000 lbs. (45 tons) of tea, which would cost nearly $1,000,000 dollars today. Both these events were significant to the American revolution, because showed that the relationship between Britain and its colonies was disappearing.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre

http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-tea-party

https://docs.google.com/a/catlin.edu/document/d/1iKqqpObsrsLgwdIqKgjVb_1v79I_yP4jMgq3bu7Nwcs/edit?usp=sharing

 Tea party? More like tea war declaration!

Written by Silas Godlee-Campbell 

           "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American!"
 This statement was made by Patrick Henry (an orator during the movement for independence) shortly after the Boston Tea Party.

          The reason  that this "tea party" was so historically  important was not that Mr. beary actually showed up (he didn't)  it was that during the Boston Tea Party  English settlers dumped 12 million dollars worth of tea into the Boston harbor. That's 27,180,000 cups! Now the English settlers didn't do this out of celebration or boredom they did this to get back on England, because England was taxing them for things that they didn't tax the rest of England for such as tea or beans. Now the English settlers were a little ticked by this but what really got their knickers in a twist was that they didn't get a say in how they were taxed and they couldn't try to change the previous taxes, this is called taxing without representation.

           This event was one of the major turning points in American history. If the English settlers didn't get so fed up the country might be a completely different place maybe we would all be English or maybe our land would be sold and America would be controlled by 17 different countries. So next time you're enjoying the hearty taste of a Big Mac be thankful that the English settlers had the back bone to fight back against their English depressors.

 Sources
 http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_came_first_Boston_massacre_or_Boston_tea_party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_taxation_without_representation
https://docs.google.com/a/catlin.edu/document/d/1L2IsJucS_2BMw8Bb8B_jP7rcF6SW-tZIhPX3JAZxD4g/edit?pli=1