Boston Tea Party :: essays research papers

The Boston Tea Party was the key-event for the Revolutionary War. With this act, the colonists started the violent part of the revolution. It was the first try of the colonists, to rebel with violence against their own government. The following events were created by the snowball effect. There, all the colonists realized the first time, that they were treated wrong by the British government. It was an important step towards the independence dream, which was resting in the head of each colonist. They all flew from their mother country to start a new life in a new world, but the British government didn't gine them the possibility by controlling them. The causes for the Boston Tea Party The events leading to the Boston Tea Party began already ten years before ( 1763 ), when the English won the French-and-Indian War. The king of Britain passed taxes on the colonies to make up for the loss of money because of the war. He did it in a line of acts, called the Sugar Act ( tax to protect and secure the colonists ) and the Stamp Act ( tax on all licences, newspapers and business papers ). The colonists reacted with protests against those acts, what made the British Parliament to repeal the taxes within 5 months. Then they (the government ) passed taxes on lead, paint, paper and tea. These acts were called the Townshed Duties, but the colonists called them the "Insidious Acts". Mass meetings were held and people tried to influence others not to buy English imported goods anymore. In the end the parliament removed all the taxes except for tea. Actually the colonists easily didn't want to accept, to pay taxes to a government, they don't really belong to anymore. Although this tax on the tea cost a colonial family just pennies a year. Sam Adams, a kind of leader of the colonists, figured out, that the tax could be raised or lowered by the parliament at will. ( Sam Adams: "The power to tax is the power to destroy!" ).He also pointed out, that the colonists had no representation in the Parliament, and that they can't be taxed without having a representation in there, to care for their interests and wills. However, most people drank tea smuggled in from the Netherlands, so they didn't care very much whether the parliament raises or lowers the taxes.