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The Boston Tea Party was a seminal American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, during the American Revolution. Initiated by Sons of Liberty activists in Boston in colonial Massachusetts, one of the original Thirteen Colonies in British America, it escalated hostilities between Britain and American Patriots, who opposed British colonial mercantile and governing practices. Less than two years later, on April 19, 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord, also in Massachusetts, launched the eight-year American Revolutionary War between the British and the Thirteen Colonies, which ultimately prevailed, securing their independence and the establishment of the sovereign United States of America.

The target of the Boston Tea Party was the British implementation of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea from China in the colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts. The Sons of Liberty strongly opposed the Townshend Act taxes, which they saw as a violation of their rights as Englishmen to "no taxation without representation.

Disguised as Native Americans the night of December 16, 1773, Sons of Liberty activists boarded the Dartmouth, a British ship that had docked in Boston carrying a major shipment of East India Company tea, and set about throwing 342 chests of the tea into Boston Harbor. The British government considered the protest an act of treason and responded harshly. Nine days later, on December 25, at the Philadelphia Tea Party, American patriots similarly protested the arrival of a British tea shipment, which arrived aboard the British ship Polly. While the Philadelphia patriot activists did not destroy the tea, they sent the ship back to England without unloading it.

Parliament responded in 1774 with the Intolerable Acts, or Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed Boston's commerce. Colonists throughout the Thirteen Colonies responded to the Intolerable Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them, culminating in the October 1774 Continental Association.

In addition to proving one of the most influential events of the American Revolution, the Boston Tea Party has proved an enduring historical symbol. In the 21st century, drawing inspiration from the symbolism of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, the Tea Party movement drew its name from it and has frequently cited the principles associated with it and the broader American Revolution as inspirational and guiding principles.

Full article: Boston Tea Party