today we're looking at the boston tea party
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questions down in the description so in the wake of the boston massacre the british lightened up
on the american colonies in terms of regulations and taxes many of the 2000 british troops that
occupied boston were called back to england and many taxes that had been imposed were repealed
all except for attacks on tea tea was extremely popular in the colonies and the british wanted to
maintain the tax as a symbol of their authority to tax the colonies in response many colonists began
to boycott tea that was shipped to america by the british east india company and instead smuggled
the tea in and did not pay any taxes this also made the smuggled variety of the tea cheaper than
the british supply tea in the past the british had tried to cut down on smuggling by passing tougher
regulations and those plans had not really worked out so well and so now they decided to try a new
ploy in may of 1773 british parliament passed the tea act the tea act was not a tax what it
did was it gave the british east india company the authority to basically sell tea directly to
colonists and cut out colonial tea merchants who were the middlemen and would mark up the tea in
order to make a profit by doing this they made the price of british supplied tea cheaper than
the smuggled tea so even with the taxes it was still cheaper than the smuggled tea so you would
think that this was a great deal for the colonists and they would get cheaper tea and they wouldn't
buy the smuggled tea well the colonists saw what the british were doing and they still refused to
buy british tea because of the tax on it by late 1773 the crisis over tea came to a head in boston
near the end of november 1773 three british ships arrived at griffin's wharf in boston loaded with
british tea the dock workers there at griffin's wharf many of them of course being members of
the sons of liberty refused to unload the tea off the boats and demanded that the ships leave
and go back to england thomas hutchinson who was the colonial governor of massachusetts
demanded the ships be unloaded and the taxes on the t be paid on the evening of december 16 1773
a crowd of thousands of colonists gathered at the south meeting house in boston the crowd took a
vote and voted to not pay the taxes on the t and not allow the t to be unloaded the captain of one
of the ships stood up and told the crowd that he had been given orders by the governor to not leave
until the t was unloaded at that point samuel adams got up and said this meeting can do no
more to save the country now this might seem like a simple statement from adams but in the years
following the events of that evening it was found that this was the signal for the sons of liberty
to spring into action and unload the t just not exactly in the manner that governor hutchinson or
the british were expecting so a large group of men wearing native american disguises
began to march towards griffin's wharf thousands followed them through the streets of boston
at the wharf these men boarded the ships and began throwing and dumping chests of tea into the
water for over two hours thousands of colonists cheered as 342 chests holding 45 tons of tea was
dumped into griffin's wharf the value of the team today would be somewhere near a million dollars
the men then cleaned up the decks of the ship leaving almost no sign of the destruction except
for all the water in the harbor of course now being turned completely brown from the tea the
men then quickly vanished into the crowd of spectators at the time many suspected the sons
of liberty and they would have been right but at the time no one would admit to who did it
only one person francis akeley was arrested and charged with the destruction of the tea
some colonists rejoice in what became known as the boston tea party while others realized they might
have just pushed the british too far and they would be right as the british now would crack down
severely on the colonies and especially boston these new policies and regulations by the british
in reaction to the boston tea party would be a direct cause of the first shots being fired
in the american revolution so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching