The move to independence: the colonies in their fight to protect their liberties, the Tea Act and Boston Tea Party

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The Tea Act was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain to expand the British East India Company's monopoly on the tea trade to all British Colonies, selling excess tea at a reduced price. It was passed on May 10, 1773.

The Boston Tea Party most appalled British political opinion makers of all stripes. The action united all parties in Britain against the American radicals. After the Boston tea party, Britain decided to close down the Boston Harbor until the tea was further paid for, as provided in the Boston Port Act. This was the first of the so-called Intolerable Acts, or Coercive Acts as they were called by the British, passed by Parliament in response to the Boston Tea Party. All this united many colonists even more in their frustrations against Britain, and was one of the many causes of the American Revolution.

The Act was repealed by the Taxation of Colonies Act 1778, though unable at that point to quell the on-going revolt.

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea coming into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.

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 for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. 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. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.

The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, closed Boston's commerce until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists 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.

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