Boston Tea Party Essay -- American History Boston Tea Party Essays

Boston afternoon teatime leaf political party When the Boston tea Party occurred on the evening of December 16,1773, it was the culmination of numerous years of bad feeling between the British government and her American colonies. The debate between the two always seemed to hinge on the taxes, which Great Britain compulsory for the upkeep of the American colonies. Starting in 1765, the Stamp Act was mean by parliament to provide the funds necessary to keep tranquility between the American settlers and the Native American population. The Stamp Act was loathed by the American colonists and later repealed by parliament. (http//www.bostonteapartyship.com/ bill.htm) However, the British government quickly enacted otherwise laws designed to solve monetary problems. Each act was met with resistance. The Boston Tea Party was the last-place act of focused rage against a parliamentary law. The Americans were well organized to resist new financial demands placed upo n them by the British Parliament. In 1765 the secret organizations known as the Sons and the Daughters of Liberty were created to boycott British products. By early 1773 the assemblies of Massachusetts and Virginia had created the Committees of Correspondence, which were designed to communicate inside the colonies any threats to American liberties. In April 1773 the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, which allowed the eastern Indian Company to undersell colonial tea merchants in the American market. The stage was set for a confrontation. (Burns, B31) In the first few months of 1773 the British East India Company found it was sitting on large stocks of tea that it could not sell in England. It was on the verge of bankruptcy, and many members of Parliament owned stock in this participation. (USA, 1) The Tea Act in 1773 was an feat to save it. The Tea Act gave the company the right to export its trade without paying taxes. Thus, the company could undersell American merchant s and monopolize the colonial tea trade. By October, the Sons of Liberty in spic-and-span York, Philadelphia, and Boston threatened tea imports and pledged a tea boycott. The Tea Act was incendiary for many reasons. First, it angered colonial merchants who feared they would be replaced and bankrupt by this powerful company. Second, the company chose to give exclusive privileges to certain merchants for the sale of their tea. Third, the Tea Act revived... ...itish government. In Boston, the site of a bloody confrontation between British redcoats and Americans citizens slight than 10 years before, emotions ran high. Boston was a center of agitation and in the end on the night of December 16,1773, the course of world history was changed. A revolutionary event was on the horizon. As once patriot mournfully observed, Our cause is righteous and I have no doubt of final success. But I see our generation, and perhaps out whole land, spread over in blood. (Liberty, 2) The rest is hi story.Works Cited Boston Tea PartyBurns, Robert E. Episodes in American History. Massachusetts Ginn & Co., 1973.Gilbert, Philip, and Norman Graebner. A History of the American People. New York McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1971.Hewes, George. Boston Tea Party Eyewitness Account. The History Place. http//www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/teaparty.htm (13 Mar. 2001)Liberty High Tea in Boston view as. PBS Online. 1997. http//www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/chronicle/episode1.html (13 Mar. 2001)USA Boston Tea Party. Department of Humanities Computing. 1997. http//odur.let.rug.nl/usa/E/teaparty/bostonxx.htm (10 Mar. 2001)