Boston Tea Party

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Boston Tea Party

• By Cadet C. Wilson

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• On May 10, 1773, the British parliament
  authorized the East India Co., which faced
  bankruptcy due to corruption and mismanagement,
  to export a half a million pounds of tea to the
  American colonies for the purpose of selling it
  without imposing upon the company the usual
  duties and tariffs.

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• With these privileges, the company could
  undersell American merchants and monopolize the
  colonial tea trade. Not only did this action
  create an unfair commerce to the merchants of the
  colonies but it proved to be the spark that
  revived American passions about the issue of
  taxation without representation.

"If our trade be taxed, why not our lands, in
short, everything we posses? They tax us without
having legal representation."
Samuel Adams
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• Samuel Adams staged a spectacular drama. On the
  evening of December 16, 1773, three companies of
  fifty men each, masquerading as Mohawk Indians,
  passed through a tremendous crowd of spectators,
  went aboard the three ships, broke open the tea
  chests, and heaved them into the harbor. As the
  electrifying news of the Boston "tea party"
  spread, other seaports followed the example and
  staged similar acts of resistance of their own.'

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THE END