<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Boston Tea Party was a political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773 . The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts, thus undercutting local tea merchants: Demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company . </P> <P> They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into Boston Harbor . The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution . The Tea Party became an iconic event of American history, and since then other political protests such as the Tea Party movement have referred to themselves as historical successors to the Boston protest of 1773 . </P>

What kind of pressure did the colonists apply when they carried out the boston tea party