American Revolution Dbq

It was the Tea Act. This act stated that only the British East India Company could sell or transport tea. Members of parliament passed this act because many of them had stakes in the company. At the time the British India Company was going bankrupt. This act threatened all colonial businesses by creating a monopoly. In Boston, the colonists devised a plan to resist this act. Several colonists dressed as Indians to deceive the British. These colonists seized the imported tea and dumped it into the harbor. The colonists dubbed this “the tea party.” The British responded to these actions by creating four acts jointly called the Coercive Acts. These acts closed the Boston ports to all trade, increased power of Massachusetts governor, granted trials of royal officials in Massachusetts be tried elsewhere, and allowed the new governor rights to quarter his troops anywhere. These Coercive Acts only angered the colonists more. They have strengthened their non-importation of British goods. They have also begun the forming of local militia companies.

In 1773, Parliament aroused the Americans by passage of the Tea Act. This act, designed to help the East India Company by making it cheaper for them to sell tea in America, was interpreted by Americans as a subtle ploy to get them to consume taxed tea. In Boston, in December 1773, a group of men dumped the tea into the harbor.

The British hoped that the tea act would undercut the tea smuggled into britain's north american colonies.The British government led by the Prime Minister, Lord North, hoped to reassert Parliament’s right to impose direct revenue taxes on the American Colonies with the cheap tea.Never-the-less the British anticipated a good reception to the Tea Act in America, after all, the colonists would get their tea at a cost lower than ever before.Tea would be cheaper in America than Britain. Ships laden with more than half a million pounds of tea set off for the colonies shortly after the Tea Act was passed.

On April 27, 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act, which was supposed to, as History’s article, “Tea Act,” states, “was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company, a key actor in the British economy.” The colonists viewed the Act as another example of the British Parliament abusing taxation. To further express the colonists’ hatred towards the Tea Act, John Green explains in his YouTube video, “Taxes & Smuggling - Prelude to Revolution: Crash Course US History #6,” that “Some colonists were upset that cheap tea would cut into the profits of smugglers and established tea merchants, but most were just angry on principle.” At the time, tea was just as equally an important beverage to both the colonists and the British, and having the British tax the tea showed

At the time tea was the most popular non-alcoholic drink in the world, and consequently, was highly taxed. All tea which was being sent to America was first shipped through England. By the time the tea made it to America, the price was through the roof. In response to the high price of tea, many merchants began smuggling the tea into America and selling it at a discounted price to the colonists. This system worked well until the Tea Act was passed. The Tea Act lowered the import tax on tea, and imposed a small tax on the tea itself. Unfortunately, the colonists did not react as well as the English hoped. Merchants felt threatened by the tax as many of their businesses relied on smuggled tea to turn a profit. The colonists also reacted negatively, believing that Britain was unfairly imposing a tax which they had to right to impose. In retaliation, American colonists dressed as Indians and dumped 342 chests of tea from British merchant ships into Boston Harbour, and again, nine days later in Delaware, colonists dumped over 700 chests. The British, rightly outraged by the actions of the colonists, imposed the Coercive Acts: 1) the King closed Boston Harbour until all the dumped tea was payed for, 2) the Massachusetts charter was annulled, and the governor council was reappointed by the King, 3) the Quartering Act required homeowners

The act angered colonial merchants because it only allowed tea to be bought from the East India Company. The issue of “taxation without representation” occurred and was felt even more than before. The colonist and merchants felt that the tax was unconstitutional and boycotted the tea. “...the tea boycott mobilized large segments of the population.” [ The Unfinished Nation, Alan Brinkley pg.102]. This highlights how the colonies were coming together against the British and the mistreatment they have

Historian, Clinton Rossiter stated that the Stamp Act had an “overwhelming refusal to obey” because the colonists were not going to allow their independence to be taken from their firm grip. Because of the threatening debt, Britain required certain colonies to provide food and shelter for British troops in an effort to save money. This Quartering Act in 1765 took more than the colonist’s money; it took their sense of security and their privacy. Americans could no longer feel safe knowing that Britain’s power to protect was growing weaker, and since the British troops still had more authority over the colonist’s, they could search the colonists’ homes and obtain personal information about them. Similarly, the tax on tea in 1773 in the colonies proved that the British were at fault for a rebellion from the colonists and that the Boston Tea Party was inevitable.

In 1773 the Boston Tea Party occurred, a monumental step in America’s early growth, leading to eventual freedom from Britain. As the British East India Company forced a tea tax on colonists, it would be up to the citizens of America, and patriots like Samuel Adams, to stand up for their rights against the British. They organized themselves enough to partake in a rebellious act, dressing as Native Americans in the night, and destroying an incoming supply of tea. While at the time the disposal of 17 million pounds of tea (Danzer et. al 99) might have seemed a waste, this act would lead to rights for colonists and a revolution, providing America with freedom, thereby causing the Boston Tea Party to be a vital act in the country’s growth.

Sunday of April 7th, 1765, a group of Rhode Island men boarded the Polly and took down the ship of its cargo carrying barrels of molasses from the sugar islands. This happened eight years before the Boston Tea Party, but the problem was the same. The British Parliament placed a tax on the sugar without letting the colonists have a chance to talk it over. This made the Americans enraged. The Americans needed to resist the tax, or they are just slaves to the British. Americans believed they had the right with what they built with their own strength, knowledge and will. They knew they had to obey laws, but only if they had a say in the making of the laws. The Americans would’ve resisted any tax the British put on them but when they taxed sugar,

Burgesses, declared that since they were entitled to the same rights as Englishmen, the colonists

The Tea Act of 1773 granted the East Indian Tea Company a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies, as well as placed a tax on tea which was the most popular non-alcoholic drink in the colonies at the time. American colonists who had no representation in Parliament began to resent being taxed by a government, in which they had no voice. Many colonists did not want to be ruled from afar. "No taxation without representation," became their rallying cry. Soon, relations between Britain and its American colonies began to sour, especially in Massachusetts and the port city

1773 the Tea Act was formally implemented. This act gave the Britain’s East India Company (shipper) the right to transport tea directly into the Colony without paying any of the regular taxes that were imposed on Colonial merchants. The dumping the tea into the colony allowed the shipper to “undercut the American merchants and monopolize the tea trade” (Brinkley 101). The consequence of this policy instigated further resentment towards the Crown and added to the belief that it was not appropriately represented by their government. In reducing the tax burden, leaving only the taxes on tea, leadership assumed the shift would be welcomed. In reality, Parliament had lost touch with its citizens. In protest, passive-aggressive movements took hold; The Daughters of Liberty boycotted tea (Brinkley 102). 1773 local populations in Philadelphia and New York took further

The Colonists from Boston had been revolting and disobeying the taxes and the acts implemented by king George III. Five months ago the Bostonian decide to take action about the benefactor acts and duped 324 chests of tea from the East India Company. The such called Intolerable Acts consist on

King George, who was a tyrant, had placed an unreasonable tax on the colonists’ tea. The colonists refused to take the tea off the three ships because they fully believed the King’s taxes were unfair and that he had no right to tax their tea. The King’s Royal Governor prevented them from returning the tea to England. He ordered that the king’s law must be obeyed and that the tea should be unloaded by December

Bitterly, the American colonies are fiercely indignant to Britain authorizing the Tea Act without colonial representation in Parliament. Undoubtedly, the taxation has been instituted primarily for Parliament to reassert their authority to level taxes upon the colonies as well as granting a monopoly over tea sales which undercuts American merchants. It has furthermore been imposed to lift the British East India Company from financial ruin so as