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Boston Tea Party/ Revolution is Being Loaded

Economy of Great Britain was in debt; extra taxes and acts especially on colonies were not sufficient or could not be applicable. Furthermore, The East India Company which had been the main actor of Britain economy had had problems with smugglers. As a result, while Great Britain had tried to pass new acts on colonies; on the other side she had tried to support East India Company. At the other side of Atlantic, new social class had emerged which lack of nobility but had commercial interests. People, who had come to this uncultivated and wild land, had begun to get richer day by day. However, they were colonies and it was restricted to trade with another European country instead of Great Britain. Though they successfully convinced the Parliament about withdrawal of Stamp Act, Great Britain economic crises was a big threat on their commercial interests. So, Loyal American merchants had begun trading with the other European countries, of course illegally. The main product was tea which was main export of East India Company too. This smuggled tea was not equal in taste and quality with East India Companies' however it was cheaper and so preferable. This smuggled tea trade especially with Dutch's, should been stopped by Great Kingdom otherwise economic crisis would be worst. So, parliament decided to pass Tea Act on 10.05.1973. According to act, East India Company was free to transfer all of its tea to America's Harbours directly without any permission and obligation to stock in Britain first. Additionally, tax on tea which was paid by East India Company was reduced. Parliament's sense on this act was to support East India Company's Tea against smuggled tea. Though, Tea Act was logical that led English tea cheaper than smuggled tea, the reaction of colonies was unexpected. People decided to boycott English tea. The reason lay behind of this boycott is still controversial subject. Utopic and romantic reason is, people bored of acts on them and though it did not threat their expenses as extra taxes did before, they decided to send message to mother land as she should not and could not pass acts on them while they were loyal to her and did not have any rights for representation.   However, I think it is more reasonable to bond this boycott with newly rising merchant class whose profit and income was threaten by this act. Those people had influence on people and it was easy to organize people against the English Tea and of course Kingdom of Great Britain. Many of them would be founding fathers of America at the end of American Revolution, but on these days they were known as Sons of Liberty. There were businessmen, publishers, journalists, lawyers, physicians, financial broker etc. among them.  As a result, economic reason had been combined with ideals and protests on act had been started In every colonies except Massachusetts, protesters were able to force the tea consignees to resign or to return the tea to England. However, in late November 1773 the tea ship Dartmouth arrived in the Boston Harbour. Payment should be done within 3 weeks according to law. Governor Hutchinson was on the edge of tough decision. It was almost impossible to convince people, however on the other side there was a King and his law. He decided to act according to law and did not let the ship return.      Whig leader Samuel Adams called for a mass meeting to be held at Faneuil Hall on November 29, 1773. Since thousands of people came to meeting, meeting place was changed to Old South Meeting House. British law required the Dartmouth to unload and pay the duties within twenty days or customs officials could confiscate the cargo. The mass meeting passed a resolution, introduced by Adams and based on a similar set of resolutions promulgated earlier in Philadelphia, urging the captain of the Dartmouth to send the ship back without paying the import duty. Meanwhile, the meeting assigned twenty-five men to watch the ship and prevent the tea from being unloaded. Two more tea ships, the Eleanor and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor. On December 16—the last day of the Dartmouth's deadline—about 7,000 people had gathered around the Old South Meeting House. And again Governor Hutchinson had refused to let the ships return. That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men, some dressed in the Mohawk warrior disguises, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water. The precise location of the Griffin's Wharf site of the Tea Party has been subject to prolonged uncertainty; a comprehensive study places it near the foot of Hutchinson Street (today's Pearl Street). It was peaceful event, they only dumped the tea, they did not damage anything even they changed the broken padlock. The Boston Tea Party gave the colonists the motivation to stand up for their rights and to ultimately risk their lives by going to war for their independence while motivated Great Britain to send troops to America to suppress the protests. So, this peaceful protest had been the start of long, devastating and mortal revolution which would bring new ideas to the world.

Devletler Kingdom of Great Britain

Medeniyetler Anglo-Saxon (English)

Dinler Christianity