“The baleful chests [of East India Company tea] contain in them a slow poison… something worse than death – the seeds of slavery.” –Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence
Do you know what the Boston Tea Party was really about? Well, aside from the colonists’ protests of “taxation without representation,” it was about what the Boston Patriots did to the people who they thought were not being fair about how they sold tea to them. This took place in Boston, Massachusetts.
A company called the East India Company was the only company allowed to give tea to the colonies.
Thomas Hutchinson, who was the governor in Massachusetts, was an investor in the East India Company. If the company sold tea in the colonies, he would make lots of money.
However, the patriots in Boston did not buy the tea. They did not want to buy the tea because they thought that only one company selling tea was not fair.
So, on December 16th, 1773, a group of patriots known as the “Sons of Liberty” dressed as Native Americans and boarded the ships carrying tea. They then ripped open the chests of tea and dumped all of it into the Boston Harbor.
When they threw it into the harbor, they said that they were making saltwater tea.
Fast Fact: Did you know that when the Boston Harbor tide went out, 342 chests of tea was in it?
For a more complete account of the events surrounding the Boston Tea Party, take a look at this short video.
