Colonists in the Thirteen Colonies recognized the implications of the Act's provisions, and a coalition of merchants, smugglers, and artisans similar to that which had opposed the Stamp Act 1765 mobilized opposition to the delivery and distribution of the tea. The Tea Act resulted in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 when a group of colonists called the 'sons of liberty' boarded the ships harbored at the Boston Port. In Boston the Royal Governor was stubborn & held the ships in port, where the colonists would not allow them to unload. As the previous educator has noted, the Tea Act severely damaged the business interests of colonial tea merchants, who were undercut by the new legislation. Because of this, tensions between Britain and the colonies increased. And the final nail was hit with the Administration of Justice Act which gave the opportunity to a British officer accused of a crime in America to be tried in Great Britain or elsewhere. In 1767, Charles Townshend (1725-67), Britains new chancellor of the Exchequer (an office that placed him in charge of collecting the governments revenue), proposed a law known as the Townshend Revenue Act. 0 Comments Add a Comment However, by this time, the Americans had become accustomed to the British policy of "salutary neglect," in which the British turned a blind to the many American violations of British tax and tariff laws, letting the Americans run their own affairs. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. The Boston Tea Party caused extensive property damage and enraged the British government. They believed that the Indian Reserve was a rightful gain from the French and Indian War and the colonists had the right to expand their settlements in the Ohio Country. It used to be a busy intersection, but it has since been submerged. The Company was eligible to be granted a license to export tea to North America. True, the tax was a very small one and tea would have remained cheap. After the Boston Tea Party, the British adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy that sought to isolate troublemaking Boston from the other colonies, which leaders in Parliament believed were merely tagging along with Boston's radicals.In the spring of 1774, Parliament passed the Coercive Acts, which were aimed solely at Boston and envisioned as punishment for its radical opposition to British . On December 16, 1773, a group of patriots posing as Mohawk Indians destroyed 342 tea chests belonging to the East India Company. Although the victory greatly expanded the empires imperial holdings, it also left it with a massive national debt, and the British government looked to its North American colonies as an untapped source of revenue. The colonists organized protests against the laws and deeply resented the British tactics against the American colonies. Second, the Tea Act was a threat to American businesses. The Tea Act actually revived the flagging careers of agitators like Samuel Adams, who had been frustrated in recent years by the relative calm in the relationship with the mother country. Molasses Act, (1733), in American colonial history, a British law that imposed a tax on molasses, sugar, and rum imported from non-British foreign colonies into the North American colonies. Delegates from 9 colonies meet at Stamp Act Congress (1765) 2. In 1763, the British Empire emerged as the victor of the Seven Years War (1756-63). After the French and Indian War, the British imposed many measures to exact the losses they incurred from American colonists. After the Boston Massacre, the British government decided to abolish the Townshend Acts because the colonists boycott of British products had harmed the trade between the two countries. Resistance to this tax included pressure to avoid legally imported tea, leading to a drop in colonial demand for the Company's tea and a burgeoning surplus of the tea in the company's English warehouses. Rather, the act was a straightforward order of economic protectionism for a British tea firm, the East India Company, that was on the verge of bankruptcy. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Many participants fled Boston as soon as the tea was destroyed to avoid arrest, and the majority of them did so immediately after the tea was destroyed. Tea was the most popular drink in the English colonies, and anger over . Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The British Empire had hoped to enrich its coffers by carrying out trade within her colonies across the globe, however, the smuggled tea supplied by the Dutch traders in America had become a nuisance to this plan. After the Patriot movement waned in the early 1770s, why did the Tea Act reignite colonial resistance? eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. The Tea Act of 1773 angered American political leaders for several reasons. The Tea Act of 1773 angered American political leaders for several reasons. In most colonies, the elective assemblies paid the governors salaries, and losing that power of the purse would greatly enhance the power of the royally appointed governors at the expense of representative government. "Why did the Tea Act of 1773 anger many American colonists?" The company was granted a license by the Tea Act in 1835 to export tea to American colonies. Battles between British and local militia fighters in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, were the first shots of the Revolutionary War. The British responded by passing the Tea Act, which gave the East India Company a monopoly on tea. I have written several books on the subject of tea and herbalism, and I am always happy to share my knowledge with those who are interested in learning more. The colonists demonstrated to the British that they could fight back. Their resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, in which colonists boarded East India Company ships and dumped their loads of tea overboard. Several similar actions have taken place in Edenton, North Carolina, and Yorktown, Virginia, in addition to the Tea Party in Boston. Prior to the Tea Act, the British East India Company was compelled to sell its tea at auction in London. Why did the Tea Act of 1773 anger many American colonists? In response, British Parliament imposed a series of harsh measures intended to stifle colonial resistance. [2] Tea destined for the North American colonies would be purchased by merchants specializing in that trade, who transported it to North America for eventual retail sale. British parliament passes unpopular Tea Act - HISTORY Britian was within its "rights" to mandate the tax and the colonials were within their "rights" to resist. Finally, many leaders also thought that the British were attempting to win popular acceptance of the Townshend duties on other imported goods, passed earlier. The Townshend Duties were still in place, however, and the radical leaders in America found reason to believe that this act was a maneuver to buy popular support for the taxes already in force. British Prime Minister, Frederick, Lord North, who initiated the legislation, thought it impossible that the colonists would protest cheap tea; he was wrong. There were two main reasons why the Tea Act reignited colonial resistance. When the British Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed the Tea Act in May 1773, he was not even thinking of the North American colonies, but rather of the East India Company, which had assumed control over India.In exchange for the power to appoint its governors, North loaned the company 1.5 millionthe equivalent of about $270 million today. The introduction of the Tea Act in 1773 decidedly broke the patience of the American colonists. It was made up of men from all walks of life in colonial society and is credited with founding the United States. The Tea Act: The Catalyst of the Boston Tea Party. Learn how and when to remove this template message, his Majesty's colonies or plantations or farms in America, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tea_Act&oldid=1154174228, Repealed Great Britain Acts of Parliament, Articles needing additional references from September 2018, All articles needing additional references, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, An act to allow a drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea or oil to any of. The Tea Act was a law passed by the British Parliament in 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts.The Sons of Liberty strongly opposed the . The Tea Act - US History The shipment of British East India Company tea was spared from destruction because of the care taken to avoid personal property destruction. The Tea Act was one of several coercive measures passed by Parliament in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. The Stamp Act was enacted in 1765 by British Parliament. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament's right of taxation. The fact that the agents commissioned by the company to sell its tea included a number of pro-Parliament men only added fuel to the fire.The Tea Act revived the boycott on tea and inspired direct resistance not seen since the Stamp Act crisis. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. If the Company was permitted to directly ship tea to the colonies, this would remove the markups of the middlemen from the cost of its tea. It is possible that New York and Philadelphia played a role in the Boston Tea Party because they wanted the tea to be kept out of the city. The Tea Act, which was approved by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would prove to be the deciding factor in the development of revolutionary sentiment in Boston. To the British, the colonists protested. Because of the Tea Act, the colonists were required to purchase all of their tea from the East India Company.They had the option of either paying the tax on tea or going without it altogether.What prompted colonists to take part in the Boston Tea Party was the cause of their participation. They had the wealth, the political power, and the social standing to kick back hard against the Tea Act, to mount a sustained, vigorous challenge against the new law that culminated in the Boston Tea Party. They perceived it as unnecessary interference of the British government in the affairs of the colonists. Educators go through a rigorous application process, and every answer they submit is reviewed by our in-house editorial team. Instrumental in preventing the enforcement of the Stamp Act, they remained an active pre-Revolutionary force against the crown. Even untaxed Dutch tea, which entered the colonies illegally through smuggling, was more expensive the East India tea after the act took effect. How To Make The Perfect Cup Of Lavita Green Tea. Hundreds of people attended the Boston Tea Party, according to reports. During the Boston Tea Party, which took place on December 16, 1773, colonists were responsible for the destruction of tea worth more than 90,000. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. In Edenton, North Carolina, fifty women gathered to support their colonys resistance to the Tea Act. The History of Us is a registered trademark, View other events that happened on May 10. In 1768, when New York and Philadelphia joined Boston in the boycott of British goods the clashes took a violent turn. Intolerable Acts | 1774, Definition, Summary, Significance, & Facts They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. What is the Tea Act? Some colonists claimed the tea-tax had been removed because the British wanted to dissuade them from boycotting British goods - which may well be at least partially true. Uncovering and Exploring the Facts About Tea. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata. This act placed duties on a number of goods imported into the colonies, including tea, glass, paper and paint. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress, Atrial Fibrillation And Green Tea: What You Need To Know. The colonists had already staged two separate boycotts of British products in order to voice their opposition to the levies that Parliament had imposed with the intention of increasing income. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. During the Tea Act, a powder keg of anti-American sentiment and resentment erupted, inspiring the Tea Party in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. Log in here. They also felt that the American colonists need to pay their share of the debts incurred in the defense of the colonies. Additionally, spinach contains trace quantities of sugar,, Browse All Fruit Conversions Many recipes ask for a cup of chopped snap peas, but it can be difficult to determine exactly what that entails. What are nine reasons why the colonists were mad about the Tea Act in Our goal is to help you learn more about tea so that you can enjoy it to the fullest. In Charleston the cargo was left to rot on the docks. The most spectacular action occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, where on December 16, 1773, a well-organized group of men dressed up as Native Americans and boarded the company ships. Our website is dedicated to providing accurate and up-to-date information about different types of tea. Because the Tea Act eliminated the need for the company to pay additional taxes in England, tea prices were effectively reduced. Furthermore, the Townshend duties applied to the tea would implicitly force compliance of the colonists to English taxes, thus serving a third purpose. The Colonies Move Toward Open Rebellion, 1773-1774