What was the Boston Tea Party?
(Image source: Sarony and Major)
Question from Amos Bramley
By 1773, colonists living in America were growing impatient with the rule of King George III and the British Parliament. The British were steeped in debt and hoped to recoup their losses by taxing their colonies across the Atlantic more heavily. The colonists protested this taxation and eventually the British relented, but they retained their heavy taxation on tea.
In retaliation to this, an anti-British group of merchants known as the Sons of Liberty organised the ‘Boston Tea Party’, where they sneaked aboard ships and threw 342 precious chests of tea into the harbour. Within the next two years the British and the colonists would be at war.
Answered by James Horton for Brain Dump in How It Works issue 121.
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