Boston Tea Party engraving by W. The Dartmouth Ship was carrying 114 chests of tea; the Eleanor Ship was carrying 114 chests of tea; the Beaver Ship was carrying 114 chests of tea. No one was hurt, and aside from the tea, the only damage recorded was one broken padlock. The quality of the smuggled tea did not match the quality of the dutiable East India Company tea, of which the Americans bought 562,000 pounds 255,000 kg per year. Since the consignees refused to receive the tea, it became liable to seizure by the Crown after twenty days in port.
Some of the patriots tried grabbed up some of the loose tea and stuffed it into their pockets for their own families and personal use. To date it is known that 116 people are documented to have participated. Just as quickly as they had come, the men were gone. Colonists in Philadelphia and New York turned the tea ships back to Britain. The colonists demonstrated their displeasure with the remaining tax by drinking smuggled tea. Who Was Involved In The Boston Tea Party? This was the situation in Boston that led to the Boston Tea Party. The precise location of the Griffin's Wharf site of the Tea Party has been subject to prolonged uncertainty; a comprehensive study places it near the foot of Hutchinson Street today's Pearl Street.
In 1773 the company was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of mismanagement. The Colonists were frustrated by the number of taxes Parliament kept trying to place on them without their consent. The East India Company did not export tea to the colonies; by law, the company was required to sell its tea at auctions in England. In the following year, when Massachusetts was punished by Parliament for the destruction of a shipload of tea in Boston Harbor, sympathetic North Carolinians sent food and other supplies to its beleaguered northern neighbor. The Tea Party The biggest shipment arrived in Griffin's wharf, in Boston on or just before November 29, 1773. Previously, American ships brought much of the tea from England, but that trade was now reserved for the East India Company. Two more tea ships, Eleanor and Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor there was another tea ship headed for Boston, William, but it encountered a storm and put aground at Cape Cod — where the tea cargo was successfully landed — before it could reach its destination.
The British government responded in 1773 with a program designed to answer two needs: 1 extend assistance to the East India Company, and 2 challenge the American colonists on the nettlesome taxation issue. British Prime Minister, Frederick, Lord North, who initiated the legislation, thought it impossible that the colonists would protest cheap tea; he was wrong. In Great Britain, this meant that taxes could only be levied by Parliament. According to Whigs, colonists could only be taxed by their own colonial assemblies. The British had imposed heavy tax duties on imported products like tea, paint, sugar, etc, that were imported from other countries.
A meeting at the was called on December 3 because 257 chests of East India Company tea had arrived in Charles Town two days before in Captain Alexander Curling’s ship, the London. The East India Company, famed for spreading English influence throughout India, had fallen on hard times in the early 1770s. The 342 containers totaled 90,000 pounds of tea! The smugglers in the colonies found the Dutch tea that they sold was higher in price than the British tea, so they stag … ed the Boston Tea Party and others in harbors in the colonies Hamilton was one of the largest smugglers in the colonies and a founding member of the Son's of Liberty. If this had been the full extent of the meeting’s historical importance, it would be an interesting, but hardly remarkable event. On December 16, 1773, some 150 men boarded three ships docked at Griffin's Wharf. The British government agreed to allow the company exclusive right to sell the tea in the American colonies. No disorder took place during that transaction, and it was observed at that time that the stillest night ensued that Boston had enjoyed for many months.
The Britishgovernment granted the company sole control monopoly on tea beingimported and sold in the colonies. Even though the company was failing, Parliament refused to back down regarding their right to tax the colonies. The crisis escalated, and the began near Boston in 1775. In New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, protesters successfully compelled the tea consignees to resign. Whigs, sometimes calling themselves Sons of Liberty, began a campaign to raise awareness and to convince or compel the consignees to resign, in the same way that stamp distributors had been forced to resign in the 1765 Stamp Act crisis. Final Comments The Boston Tea Party was an act of rebellion from which the strained relationship between Britain and the colonies would never recover. The Sons tried to stop them, but at least one man managed to escape their custody and run through the crowd with his pockets stuffed with tea, even though each person either kicked or hit him as he passed by.
The direct sale of tea, via British agents, would also have undercut the business of local merchants. In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774. The Tea Act, passed by Parliament in May of 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. American Patriots strongly opposed the taxes in the Townshend Act as a violation of their rights. In some cases, this involved donning what may have been elaborately prepared costumes. Governor Hutchinson in Boston was determined to leave the ships in port, even though vigilant colonists refused to allow the tea to be landed. The repealed the tea tax and others that had been imposed on the colonies, but it proved insufficient to end the war.
It was one of the key events leading up to the American Revolution. Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician. In September and October 1773, seven ships carrying East India Company tea were sent to the colonies: four were bound for Boston, and one each for New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. Why Did the Boston Tea Party Occur? There was a fifth law that was called the Quebec act. The Townshend Duties were still in place; however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this Act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. This was termed extremely unfair by the colonists who termed the tax charges levied against them as unjust, because none of them was represented in the British Parliament when the Tax Act was passed.
Coffee drinking increased as a result of boycotts on British tea. But the tax was also a political power move on behalf of Parliament, meant to reassert control over the colonies, as well as an economic decision designed to bail out the floundering East India Company, a threshold of English commercial interests. According to Young, American writers were for many years apparently reluctant to celebrate the destruction of property, and so the event was usually ignored in histories of the American Revolution. Britain dropped the price of tea until the smuggled tea was actually more expensive than the regular tea. The tea sold in the colonies wouldn't have a tax any more, instead it would be taxed at each individual port, and agents were appointed to receive and sell the tea and pay the tax. The Act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes.