In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act. It allowed the financially troubled East India Company to sell tea directly in the colonies, making legal tea cheaper even with the remaining duty. British officials expected consumers to welcome the lower price. Colonists saw a trap: buying the tea would acknowledge Parliament’s right to tax them. After a mass meeting in Boston, men boarded three ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. Participants sought to avoid theft and needless destruction; the target was the tea and the principle it represented. Britain responded with the Coercive Acts-called the Intolerable Acts by colonists-closing Boston’s port, altering Massachusetts government, expanding provisions for quartering troops and moving some trials involving officials. The punishment of Massachusetts produced solidarity rather than isolation. Food and supplies arrived from other colonies. In September 1774, delegates from twelve colonies met at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. They coordinated economic resistance, affirmed colonial rights and agreed to reconvene if grievances remained unresolved.
A REVOLUTION WITH MANY POSITIONS
Colonial society was divided. Patriots resisted imperial policy; Loyalists defended the Crown or feared disorder; many tried to remain neutral. Enslaved people assessed which side might offer freedom. Indigenous nations saw colonial expansion-not parliamentary taxation-as the greater danger. The conflict that Patriots framed as a struggle for liberty therefore presented others with different and often painful choices.
“Britain tried to punish one colony. It helped unite thirteen.”
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