On this day in history in 1773, the Boston Tea Party occurred when a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.
— Rep. Mike Collins (@RepMikeCollins) December 16, 2025
The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the British Parliament's… pic.twitter.com/HEBin9ilpA
On this day in history in 1773, the Boston Tea Party occurred when a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.
The Boston Tea Party was a protest against the British Parliament's Tea Act, which aimed to save the struggling East India Company by reducing its tax on tea and granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade. Although the Tea Act didn’t raise the price of tea, it allowed the company to undercut smuggled Dutch tea, which angered many colonists who saw it as another form of British control and "taxation without representation."
When the governor refused to allow the tea to be sent back to Britain, Samuel Adams organized the raid with the Sons of Liberty. The destruction of tea, valued at nearly $2 million today, prompted the British to pass the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts), which closed Boston's ports and imposed harsher British rule in Massachusetts. This led to the formation of the First Continental Congress, uniting the colonies in opposition to Britain.
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