The seeds of the Boston Tea Party were sown in the spring of 1773, when Parliament passed the Tea Act of 1773 in an attempt to prevent the East India Company from going bankrupt. This act authorized the company to sell a half million pounds of tea directly to the colonies, without paying the usual duties and tariffs. This meant that the East India Company could undersell anyone, including smugglers, whose tea colonists had been drinking almost exclusively since the passage of the Townshend Acts that placed taxes on everyday items like glass, paper, and tea in 1767 (all the Townshend Acts except that on tea had been repealed in 1770). Parliament reasoned that if the colonists could buy East India Company tea more cheaply than any other, they would begin drinking it again, thus saving the company. Instead, the act revived the colonists' old argument about taxation without representation and led to the events of 16 December.

Destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor

On the night of 16 December 1773, a party of men dressed as Indians boarded three vessels--Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver--that were moored at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, intending to destroy their cargoes of East India Company tea. The act was the culmination of many days of posturing, threats, and counter-threats among the merchants, government officials and radical colonists. Incensed at the landing of three ships carrying East India Company tea in late November, colonists had been blocking the unloading of the tea and convening meetings demanding that the tea be returned to England without delay.

Earlier that day, a mass meeting at the Old South Church attracted thousands of people from Boston and the surrounding towns. After a day of inflammatory discourse, Governor Thomas Hutchinson's refusal to allow the ships in port to leave without discharging their cargoes of tea was apparently the last straw. Samuel Adams rose, announcing that he did not see what more the inhabitants could to do save their country. At this, war-whoops filled the hall, and between 30 and 60 men, disguised as Indians, rushed out of the hall and into the streets of Boston, heading for Griffin's Wharf and its three tea-laden ships. In all, 340 large wooden chests containing some 90,000 pounds of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor that night.