Sometime after the French and Indian War, and before the Revolution, America was still under the rule of the British crown. Colonists, deeply upset over “Taxation without representation” chose to do something about it. On December 16, 1773, a group of men disguised as Native Americans boarded ships and dumped entire shipments of tea into Boston harbor.
Although this is as deep as knowledge of the Boston Tea Party goes for some, the real reasons the Boston Tea Party occurred were vastly more complex. You could pin the blame simply to the Tea Act of 1773, or you could broadly state “taxes” as the cause. But truly, these things, along with a few other stressors, working in tandem, were responsible for the Boston Tea Party.
To really understand the events which occurred, one must know about the mercantile system. According to Accountingtools.com, The mercantile system is a system of managing the …show more content…
This placed taxes on glass, oil, paint, paper, tea, and lead (bostonteapartyship). Americans resumed their boycotting of British goods. Houses went unpainted, and colonist began wearing homemade clothing over that of the British (Sapinsley 34). Once again, the taxes weren’t quite paying off for the British, and amid the great protest, the act was repealed; barring the tax on tea. Protest of British tea was sustained, and quickly it became extremely difficult for British tea to be sold.
Another important part of the buildup to the Boston Tea Party was the British East India Company. According to (Sapinsley 35), the East India Company was at risk of the government intervening in their somewhat questionable operations, and in order to appease them, the company vowed to make yearly payments of £400,000 to the British Treasury. The struggling company was ultimately unable to make these payments so the British government devised a plan to help them by ensuring they could unload their surplus of tea. This plan was the Tea Act Of