This Day in History: The Boston Tea Party

This Day in History:, The Boston Tea Party.

December 16, 1773.

A group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as members of the Mohawk tribe boarded three British tea ships in Boston Harbor.

They dumped 342 chests of tea — valued at $18,000 — into the harbor in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773.

Colonists viewed the act as another example of British taxation tyranny.

Outraged, British Parliament enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts in 1774.

Boston was closed to merchant shipping, and a formal British military rule was established in Massachusetts.

British officials were deemed immune to criminal prosecution in America.

Colonists were required to quarter British troops.

In response, the colonists called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British