The Boston Tea Party December 16, 1773
Now by winter 1773 things had pretty much cooled down in the Colonies after the Boston Massacre. The Massacre had forced KGIII and Parliament to cut back some of the taxes imposed on the Colonists like the Stamp Act and some of the markup that Britain used on the Colonists own goods and material. However the Tea Act was still in place, and a new Prime Minister of Parliament, Lord North took power he took charge by strengthening his grip on the Colonies by shutting down all illegal Colonial tea smuggling(getting and shipping tea from Holland that was not taxed). As a result of this many sailors lost their jobs and rich smugglers like John Hancock were losing money fast.
The result of all of this was the greatest costume party in history! A band of about 20 members of the Sons of Liberty led by Sam Adams dressed up as Native Americans, but nobody really believed it was them its pretty easy to see a 6¨2 Irishman with a red beard is not a Native American even if he did have his face painted and a tomahawk. The Sons snuck their way onto a East India trading company ship, beat up a few Redcoats guarding it, and then dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. Today that tea would have been valued at 1.7 million dollars. It was a giant middle finger to the King and Parliament, they did not get a schilling of money from this protest, but they wanted their voices heard! A company of Redcoats even watched them do it and were ordered not to be fired upon by the royal governor Thomas Hutchinson because he did not want Sam Adams death to be a bigger rallying cry for the colonists against the King like the Boston Massacre was. Yes that same royal governor that had his house burned down... When the King George heard the news he definately had his oh snap! Oh no you didnt moment. KGIII and Parliament had seen enough they passed what was called in England the Coercive Acts was called the Intolerable Acts in the Colonies. England shut down Boston Harbor, started searches of Colonists homes with no search warrents or reasons, and ended all self government in New England, ending 100 years of the Colonists mostly governing themselves. KGIII had seen enough, Ben Franklin even offered to pay for the destroyed tea himself, but KGIII did not want to hear it. There was a new Sheriff coming to town as well his name was General Gage and he was the John Cena of British Generals, he would be tasked with restoring order and law to Boston through whatever way he wanted... |