Boston+Tea+Party

= = __**The Boston Tea Party**__ By Ruby Smith and Amanda Lambert __History of the Tea Party__ The Boston Tea Party was a significant event that leads to the start of the American Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States of America. It occurred following the Parliaments Tea Act, enacted on May 10, 1773.

The East India Company, which provided the British and the colonists their tea supply, was going bankrupt and Britain wanted to help them get back on their feet. To help them, Britain let the company send the tea directly to the America’s, and had them lower their prices. They assumed that the colonists would buy more of it and the company would reach its heights again. If the colonists bought more tea they would have to pay almost twice the amount of taxes on it, which would help England in its debt. The British thought this win-win situation would work, but as they started to carry out their plan, it failed. The colonists were angered. They believed that the granting of any monopoly, even one that lowered prices, would “corrupt people’s virtues and lead to a loss in liberty”. In September 1773, the East India Company planned to send out 500,000 pounds of tea to the America’s. The tea agents in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston resigned from their positions and cancelled their orders of tea. The tea agents in Boston, however, did not resign from their jobs. Most of them were friends with the governor, who believed it was important to uphold the supremacy of the law.

"An Eyewitness Account of the Boston Tea Party." //Archiving Early America: Primary Source Material from 18th Century America//. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. <http://www.earlyamerica.com/review

When the ships finally arrived in the Boston Harbor to drop off the tea, the governor would not let them go back to England. This angered many people. On December 16, 1773 sixty men disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians and boarded the three ships in the harbor. The men broke all of the cases of tea and they threw it all into the water of the Boston Harbor. This famous event was known as the Boston Tea Party.

Many colonists up and down the coast of North America continued to boycott the Tea Act. This major event in history was only one of the factors that helped start the Revolutionary War.

**__Analysis of the Picture__** This analysis is of the picture on the top left of this page. The painter of this picture is unknown, so is the date. Before the dumping of the tea, the East India Company went bankrupt. England tried to help them by letting the company ship the tea directly to the colonists. In this painting, the colonists, dressed up as Mohawk Indians, are dumping the tea into the harbor. The information in this picture has portrayed all of the things that we have learned about. The colonists are doing the exact things that really happened in the Boston Tea Party.

" Boston Tea Party ." From: W. D. Cooper. //The History of North America//. London: E. Newberry, 1789. Library of Congress. Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Engraving. //American History Online//. Facts On File, Inc.


 * Williams, Crystal. "Boston Tea Party." In Gilje, Paul A., and Gary B. Nash, eds. //Encyclopedia of American History: Revolution and New Nation, 1761 to 1812//, Revised Edition (Volume III). New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2010. //American History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE52&iPin=EAHIII047&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 10, 2012).
 * " Boston Tea Party ." From: W. D. Cooper. //The History of North America//. London: E. Newberry, 1789. Library of Congress. Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Engraving. //American History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. @http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp? ItemID=WE52&iPin=AHI1088&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 8, 2012). "Tea Act." //American History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE52&iPin=E06950&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 9, 2012).
 * "Tea Act." //American History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE52&iPin=E06950&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 9, 2012).