The Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770,

between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of

British soldiers. Five colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-

writers to increase the interest and anger of the colonists .

The presence of British troops in Boston, Massachusetts was increasingly

unwelcome. The riot began when about 50 American colonists attacked British

soldiers. A British officer, Captain Thomas Preston, called in additional soldiers,

and these too were attacked, so the soldiers fired into the mob, killing 3 on the

spot (a black sailor named Crispus Attucks, a rope maker named Samuel Gray, and

a mariner named James Caldwell), and wounding 8 others, two of whom died later

(Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr).

As a result, a town meeting was called demanding the removal of the British

troops and the trial of Captain Preston and his men for murder. At the trial, John

Adams and Josiah Quincy II defended the British, leading to their acquittal and

release. Samuel Quincy and Robert Treat Paine were the attorneys for the

prosecution. Later, two of the British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter.

The Boston Massacre was a signal event leading to the Revolutionary War. It

led directly to the Royal Governor evacuating the occupying army from the city of

Boston. It would soon bring the revolution to armed rebellion throughout the

colonies.

Boston Massacre

Video

The Proclamation of 1763

The Tea Act The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India

Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. The passing of the Tea Act

imposed no new taxes on the American colonies. The tax on tea had existed since the passing

of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act, which taxed glass, lead, oil, paint, paper, and TEA. Due

to boycotts and protests, the Townshend Revenue Act’s taxes were repealed on all

commodities except tea in 1770. The tea tax was kept in order to maintain Parliament’s right

to tax the colonies. The Tea Act was not intended to anger American colonists, instead it was

meant to be a bailout policy to get the British East India Company out of debt. The British East

India Company was suffering from massive amounts of debts incurred primarily from annual

contractual payments due to the British government totaling £400,000 per year. Additionally,

the British East India Company was suffering financially as a result of unstable political and

economic issues in India, and European markets were weak due to debts from the French and

Indian War among other things. Besides the tax on tea which had been in place since 1767,

what fundamentally angered the American colonists about the Tea Act was the British East

India Company’s government sanctioned monopoly on tea (the British government was forcing

the colonists to buy their British tea).

The Tea Act was what ultimately compelled a group of Sons of Liberty members on the

night of December 16, 1773 to disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians, board three ships

anchored in Boston Harbor, and destroy over 92,000 pounds of tea. The Tea Act was the final

straw in a series of unpopular policies and taxes imposed by Britain on her American colonies.

The policy ignited a “powder keg” of opposition and resentment among American colonists

and was the catalyst of the Boston Tea Party.

Provisions of the Tea Act

Prior to the Tea Act, the British East India Company Tea was required to exclusively sell

its tea at auction in London. This required the British East India Company to pay a tax per

pound of tea sold which added to the company’s financial burdens. The Tea Act aborted this

restriction and granted the British East India Company license to export their tea to the

American colonies. This opened up the British East India Company’s markets to the lucrative

American colonies. Additionally, under the Tea Act, duties Britain charged on tea shipped to

the American colonies would be waived or refunded upon sale.

With the passing of the Tea Act, the seventeen million pounds of unsold surplus tea the

British East India Company owned could be sold to markets in the American colonies.

Boston Tea Party It was another cold December night in 1773 in Boston. The three British ships the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver were sitting in Boston harbor, their holds full of tea that wasn't

being unloaded because the angry residents of Boston were threatened not to buy or use the tea.

The anger was directed at the government of Great Britain, which at that time had passed the Tea Act, a law that almost guaranteed that the American colonists would buy tea from the

East India Company. Why? Because the law lowered the price on tea that the East India Company so much that it was the cheapest tea around. In fact, it was way below the price

charged by other tea companies. Most American colonists, looking for ways to cut costs and save money, would choose a cheaper tea over a more expensive tea any day.

Why did this law come about? Well, the British East India Company wasn't doing so well and the British government wanted to help the company get back on its feet.

Other tea companies weren't happy about the Tea Act, of course, but the American colonists viewed it as another example of "taxation without representation": In effect, the Tea Act was putting a tax on tea sold by companies other than the East India Company. As with the Stamp

Act and other unpopular taxes, they were all voted in by Parliament, which was thousands of miles away, and the American colonists had no way to influence the law or speak out against it

while it was being debated in government.

So the colonists were angry. They wanted to do something else to let the British know about the unhappiness that the Tea Act was causing. Some people wanted to keep things nonviolent; others wanted bloodshed. The result was somewhere in the middle.

A group of colonists determined to make things change was the Sons of Liberty. Led by such impassioned patriots as Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the Sons of Liberty had secret meetings at which they discussed how best to get their message across to Great Britain, that the

American people wanted more of a role in governing themselves.

Christmas was approaching in the year 1773, and the colonists faced another year of unopposed and unrepresentative taxes. The Sons of Liberty decided to take action.

Wearing disguises that made them look like they were Mohawk Indians, a large group of the

Sons of Liberty on December 16, 1773 stormed aboard those three unsuspecting British ships and dumped 342 crates, 92,000 pounds, full of tea overboard. By any standards, that's a

lot of tea. These crates happened to be jammed full of tea, and so the companies that made that tea lost a lot of money that night.

Because the Sons of Liberty were disguised as Native Americans, they could claim that they were not guilty of dumping the tea. The British government knew better, of course, and grew

angrier than ever at what it saw as Americans' ingratitude. The very next year saw the passage of the Coercive Acts, or what came to be called the Intolerable Acts, one of which closed the

port of Boston entirely.

The Boston Tea Party was a symbolic act, an example of how far Americans were willing to speak out for their freedom. Two short years later, Americans were willing to give their lives for

their freedom, as shots rang out on Lexington Green.

Boston Tea Party Video