This one you’ve probably heard of. On this day in 1773, a bunch of Massachusetts colonists dressed as Native Americans snuck onto tea ships in Boston Harbor and dumped much of their inventory into the water. It’s a classic story but one that’s been muddled with time. For example, contrary to popular belief, the “raid” wasn’t really about frustrations with high taxes on colonists’ tea.
It’s true that colonists were mad about taxes, and that they were incensed when the British Parliament passed the 1773 Tea Act. But tea had been taxed in the colonies for over half of a decade, like other imported goods. Most of those taxes were dropped by the time of the Boston Tea Party, except for the one on tea.
But even that wasn’t why the colonists, who dubbed themselves the Sons of Liberty, were mad enough to dress up like Mohawk Indians and go ruin other people’s stuff. It was more a reaction to the real purpose of the Tea Act, which was to bail out the British East India Company by lowering its taxes and allowing it to drop off hundreds of thousands of pounds of tea in the colonies.
That made tea very cheap, which was a threat to the interests of the merchants who drove the energy behind the Boston Tea Party. The sudden glut of tea, which remained taxed but now at a lower price, scared many into thinking that the Parliament was trying to get the colonists accustomed to paying taxes before they levied a whole set of new ones.
Want to learn more about the Boston Tea Party? History.com has a pretty neat writeup of things you likely didn’t know about it.
