In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised
as Mohawk Indians boarded three British tea ships and dump 342
chests of tea into the harbor.
The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,”
was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill
designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly
lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the
American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company
to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders,
and many colonists viewed the act as another example of
taxation tyranny.
