<P> The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773 . The demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company . 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> <P> The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773 . Colonists objected to the Tea Act because they believed that it violated their rights as Englishmen to "No taxation without representation", that is, to be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a British parliament in which they were not represented . Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain . </P> <P> The Boston Tea Party was a significant event in the growth of the American Revolution . Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, or Intolerable Acts, which, among other provisions, ended local self - government in Massachusetts and closed Boston's commerce . Colonists up and down the Thirteen Colonies in turn responded to the Coercive Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them . The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775 . </P> <P> The Boston Tea Party arose from two issues confronting the British Empire in 1765: the financial problems of the British East India Company; and an ongoing dispute about the extent of Parliament's authority, if any, over the British American colonies without seating any elected representation . The North Ministry's attempt to resolve these issues produced a showdown that would eventually result in revolution . </P>

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