The Tea Act of May 1773 allowed the financially troubled British East India Company to reduce the massive surplus of tea held in its London warehouses, while also undercutting the price of illegal tea smuggled into the North American colonies. On 16 December 1773 a group of demonstrators – some disguised as Native Americans – boarded the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver in Boston harbour, and threw their shipment of tea into the harbour. The British government responded harshly, and the episode escalated into the American War of Independence.
© Haydn Thompson 2017