Today on December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk warriors, boarded three British merchant ships and threw chests of tea into the Boston harbor

Today on December 16, 1773, the Sons of Liberty, disguised as Mohawk warriors, boarded three British merchant ships and threw chests of tea into the Boston harbor.

The Boston Tea Party was perhaps the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution. This remarkable act of defiance was in protest of the Tea Act of 1773 which set heavier duties on imported tea.

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Broadly speaking, it was also part of a widespread and growing discontent among the colonies against Great Britain and King George III. The Thirteen Colonies were constantly being hit with increased taxes without any fair political representation within the British Parliament. The troubled East India Company was in financial shambles. The transnational corporation was sitting on warehouses full of rotting tea across London. As a result, the British Parliament introduced The Tea Act, allowing the company to ship and sell tea directly to the colonies without increased import taxes. This effectively cut out American merchants from trading tea altogether. In retaliation, American consignees in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia immediately rejected any new British tea shipments. However, the merchants in Boston were not so easily persuaded by the patriot cause. On December 16, 1773, they allowed three British ships to anchor in the harbor while the city officials contemplated what to do. So that evening, Samuel Adams along with other Sons of Liberty members decided to take action into their own hands. Disguised as Mohawk warriors, they boarded three of the ships and began throwing an estimated 342 chests of tea overboard. The value of the destroyed tea is estimated to be worth over $1,000,000 dollars today. The Boston Tea Party sent a ripple effect across the colonies and resistance towards British rule immediately intensified. The British government responded harshly the following year by issuing the infamous ‘Intolerable Acts’ which served as a catalyst for the future war. Less than two years later, the American Revolution officially broke out near Boston and lasted until 1783.

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