They disguise themselves as Native Americans, board the Dartmouth, a merchantman that had docked in Boston carrying a major shipment of EIC tea, and throw 342 chests of the tea into Boston Harbor. It becomes known as the Boston Tea Party.
Was the dumping of the tea in Boston Harbor a patriotic act? Yes. Was it also a protest against taxation without representation? Yes. But it was more than that.
Keep in mind the science of the era. Water could be easily tainted, by man or nature (or, through improper sewage treatment, both). There was no real way to refrigerate liquids. The advent of pasteurization was about 90 years away, so milk did not last long before spoiling. Fruit juice, as we know it now, was not advisable, either.
So what did people drink back then? Liquids that did not need to be refrigerated. Tea. Coffee. Beer. Wine. Hard liquor. That's why they were so angry about the tax on tea: It wasn't just that it was done without their having a voting representative in the Parliament in London to weigh in on it, it made the stuff too expensive for them, and essentially took one of their few options away.
But who led the Boston Tea Party? Samuel Adams, the leading brewer of beer in British America at the time. And who was his best friend? John Hancock, the richest man in the colony of Massachusetts at the time. And how did Hancock get so rich? Shipping. Specifically, transporting liquor.
Keep in mind the science of the era. Water could be easily tainted, by man or nature (or, through improper sewage treatment, both). There was no real way to refrigerate liquids. The advent of pasteurization was about 90 years away, so milk did not last long before spoiling. Fruit juice, as we know it now, was not advisable, either.
So what did people drink back then? Liquids that did not need to be refrigerated. Tea. Coffee. Beer. Wine. Hard liquor. That's why they were so angry about the tax on tea: It wasn't just that it was done without their having a voting representative in the Parliament in London to weigh in on it, it made the stuff too expensive for them, and essentially took one of their few options away.
But who led the Boston Tea Party? Samuel Adams, the leading brewer of beer in British America at the time. And who was his best friend? John Hancock, the richest man in the colony of Massachusetts at the time. And how did Hancock get so rich? Shipping. Specifically, transporting liquor.
In other words, Adams was helping himself, and his pal Hancock, strike at their competition. The Boston Tea Party wasn't just good patriotism, it was good business. At least, until the British Army arrived. In that case, war was not good for business.
When the news of this protest crossed the Atlantic Ocean and reached London, a few weeks later, Parliament did what tyrants tend to do: They overreacted, and colonists saw the government as betraying its ideals of freedom. And so, the American Revolution became inevitable.
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