Boston Tea Party

An appropriate understanding of the importance of the Boston Tea Party cannot be obtained without an understanding of the issues and events that preceded it. The Party, which occurred in 1773, actually had its origins several years earlier, in the wake of the French and Indian War, which ended in 1763. In 1766, Parliament passed the Quartering Act, which provided for "billeting, provisioning and discipline of British forces . . . requiring colonial assemblies to provide barracks and supplies such as candles, fuel, vinegar, beer and salt for the regulars. . . Colonists saw themselves soon being required to pay all the costs of the Army in America at the 'dictate' of Parliament."1 Further to this point, the Seven Years' War was over; why the need for such a large standing army in America? This first Quartering Act was, however, obeyed in general terms, and even partly rescinded as to enforcement,2 until other Parliamentary measures pointed up colonists' feeling of oppression.

By 1767, the unpopular Stamp Act had been passed, then repealed in the f

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hem to be a much simpler, less expensive, more efficient arrangement. They decided to select just a few regular importers, of established financial responsibility and known loyalty to the Crown, in each of the principal colonial cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. To them, the company would consign all the tea expected to be marketed in each region; the consignees were then to share it equally among themselves.12 What the Tea Act really did, then, was to force smaller American firms out of the tea business altogether. It was a form of 18thcentury dumping, together with what today might be called supplyside (not to say blindside) analysis of the economies of scale, which had the added effect of allowing Britain to reclaim a portion of import duties that had been lost to the colonial boycott of tea. On one hand, then, smaller commercial interests were eliminated by the East India Company's dumping policy. This was aggravated by the fact that the chosen loyalist consignees specifically included Crown administrators and their relatives.14 On the other hand, patriotic feelings were rekindled by the perception that Britain would receive its unearned c
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Approximate Word count = 3381
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)