The Boston Tea Partyby Robert Grayhttp://www.fogtea.comThe Boston Tea Party is famous as a key point in theAmerican Revolution and in the history of the founding of the United States. It was an early example of American rebellion against British Rule and began as a political protest by Boston, Massachusetts residents against the British parliament. On 16 December 1773, about 60 local Boston residents disguised as Native American Indians boarded ships owned by the British East India Company. Once aboard, they smashed open the tea cargoes from wooden chests and dumped them into Boston harbor. Washed up on shore next morning, the cargo was of course worthless. Other ports soon followed suit - and all patriotic Americans gave up tea drinking and turned to coffee. Now you know why Americans are such big coffee drinkers!So what led to this incident? At that time, the drinking of tea was just as popular in the American colonies as it was in Britain. However the 1765 Stamp Act and the 1767 Townshend acts had resulted in a new tax on tea in order to raise money for the British armed forces. This British decision to tax the colonies without offering any corresponding representation in the Westminster Parliament caused outrage amongst Americans and gave rise to the famous slogan "No taxation without representation." This act of rebellion carried out by the Boston people later became known as the Boston Tea Party. It drew criticism from colonial and British figures alike. Indeed Benjamin Franklin stated that the destroyed tea must be repaid and offered to repay with his own resources. However due to the fact that damage to private property had taken place, the British Government felt that it could not let this episode go unpunished. Britain responded first by closing the port of Boston. Soon after new laws were passed and imposed on the colonies. These laws were so harsh that they later became known as the Five Intolerable Acts. This led to more bad feeling. The Boston Tea Party thus was one of the key events which led to the American Revolutionary War.