The Destruction of The Tea
On December 15th, 1773, the last of three ships that carried the East India Company’s tea arrived in the Boston Harbor. The way the taxes worked with the shipment of tea was that as soon as the tea was unloaded off the ships, the taxes had to be paid. What also counted was the time from when the ship had arrived. The last possible day to pay the taxes on a shipment was twenty days after it had arrived in Boston. Since the first ship of the three arrived at the end of November, the deadline to pay the taxes for it was December 17th (Ford, 2011).
A meeting was held by a group called the Sons of Liberty in a meeting house to discuss what should be done about the three ships in the harbor. Everyone agreed that the ships should leave the harbor without getting paid any taxes, but how? After much discussion, they finally came to a consensus that they would dump the tea in the harbor the very next night to show that they would not put up with the taxation of tea by British parliament (Ford, 2011).
December 16th, 1773 was the official night of the Boston Tea party. Those involved in the rebellion dressed up as Mohawk Indians (so they could hide their identities) and made their way to the port. Once they met on the harbor, they quietly boarded the ships, destroyed the boxes of tea, and dumped as much of it as they possibly could into the harbor, destroying any hope of saving it. There were even colonists out on the harbor in boats making sure that the boxes that were dumped in and could be saved were destroyed. A grand total of three-hundred forty chests were destroyed, which counted for over 92,000 pounds of tea (Shawn, 2012).
A meeting was held by a group called the Sons of Liberty in a meeting house to discuss what should be done about the three ships in the harbor. Everyone agreed that the ships should leave the harbor without getting paid any taxes, but how? After much discussion, they finally came to a consensus that they would dump the tea in the harbor the very next night to show that they would not put up with the taxation of tea by British parliament (Ford, 2011).
December 16th, 1773 was the official night of the Boston Tea party. Those involved in the rebellion dressed up as Mohawk Indians (so they could hide their identities) and made their way to the port. Once they met on the harbor, they quietly boarded the ships, destroyed the boxes of tea, and dumped as much of it as they possibly could into the harbor, destroying any hope of saving it. There were even colonists out on the harbor in boats making sure that the boxes that were dumped in and could be saved were destroyed. A grand total of three-hundred forty chests were destroyed, which counted for over 92,000 pounds of tea (Shawn, 2012).
Above is a button that, when clicked will take you to a new window that has an audio podcast of someone reading the article posted in London's Gentleman's Magazine about the Boston Tea Party. If you simply click the button, then scroll to the bottom of the website that pops up, there is a play button labeled "Listen now". Simply click play and the audio podcast should play immediately. Below is a picture of the original article in case this link does not fully work. (Richard, 2009)
(Richard, 2009)