Kennedy+Nickells+&+Sadie+Suel

The Tea Act: The Catalyst of the Boston Tea Party http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-tea-act


 * This website tells of why the Boston Tea Party occurred such as issues that Britain was facing during that time period. A few quotes i pulled from the website we could us are:

- "The tea party was not intended to anger American colonists, instead it was meant to be a bailout policy to get the British East India Company out of debt. The British East India Company was suffering from massive amounts of debts incurred primarily from annual contractual payments due to the British government totaling E400,000 per year. Additionally, the British East India Company was suffering financially as a result of unstable political and economic issues in India, and European markets were weak due to debts from the French and Indian War among other things."

- "The colonists, led by the Sons of Liberty, wanted the ships to return to England, and refused the unloading of the ships' cargo of tea. Lieutenant Governor and Chief Justice of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, refused to let the ships return to England and held the Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor in Boston Harbor until matters could be resolved and the tea offloaded."

"Boston Tea Party (1773)." Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. 1999. Retrieved February 03, 2014 from Encyclopedia.com: [| http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406400114.html]


 * This website tells of how the Boston Tea party led to the American Revolution. A few quotes i pulled from the website we could use are:

- "The Boston Tea Party led almost directly to the American Revolution. To punish the city of Boston for its role in the destruction of so much East India Company property, the British Parliament passed a series of laws known collectively as the Coercive Acts (1774). These laws closed the port of Boston until the citizens paid for the destroyed tea, dismantled Massachusetts colonial charter, expanded the powers of the king's governor, and made it harder to convict royal officials of crimes. In the Quebec Act (1774), Parliament also took away lands that had been claimed by the American colonies since their founding. In reply the Americans formed the First Continental Congress to organize and coordinate their response. Sixteen months after the tea finally sank in Boston harbor, the first shots of the American Revolution were fired." Sadie

- "The monopoly hurt colonists at all levels of society. Because the Tea Act allowed the East India Company to name its own sales agents to distribute the tea in American ports, business for local merchants and middlemen decreased. The Act offended politicians and patriots, who saw it as an attempt by Parliament to tax them without their consent. Even smugglers — who included wealthy merchants such as John Hancock (1737 – 1793) — were hurt because it made East India tea competitive with or cheaper than Dutch tea. Other Americans sought to profit from the Act. Governor Thomas Hutchinson of Massachusetts (1771 – 74), for example, used his influence to get his sons Thomas and Elisha named East India Company sales agents." Sadie

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[] This is great place to start and get facts on the Boston Tea Party and why it happened, who was involved, etc. A few examples I have found to put into the essay are:

The Tea Act was not intended to anger American colonists, instead it was meant to be a bailout policy to get the British East India Company out of debt. The British East India Company was suffering from massive amounts of debts incurred primarily from annual contractual payments due to the British government totaling £400,000 per year. Additionally, the British East India Company was suffering financially as a result of unstable political and economic issues in India, and European markets were weak due to debts from the French and Indian War among other things. - See more at: http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-tea-act#sthash.zvv4sld9.dpuf The Tea Act was not intended to anger American colonists, instead it was meant to be a bailout policy to get the British East India Company out of debt. The British East India Company was suffering from massive amounts of debts incurred primarily from annual contractual payments due to the British government totaling £400,000 per year. Additionally, the British East India Company was suffering financially as a result of unstable political and economic issues in India, and European markets were weak due to debts from the French and Indian War among other things. - See more at: http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/the-tea-act#sthash.zvv4sld9.dpuf TiThe Tea Act: The Catalyst of the Boston Tea Party The Tea Act: The Catalyst of the Boston Tea Party
 * || 90,000 lbs (45 tons) of tea in 342 containers was thrown overboard ||
 * || 116 people [|participated] in the destruction of tea ||
 * || Each full container had a weight of 400 pounds. Half-containers were 100 pounds each ||
 * || The destroyed tea was worth an estimated £10,000. In today’s money this would be approximately equal to a million dollars ||
 * || The destroyed tea was worth an estimated £10,000. In today’s money this would be approximately equal to a million dollars ||

Kennedy ||

Lancaster, B. (1959). The American Revolution. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co.

To show how the Boston Tea Party has affected how we live our lives today we can use some of the following quotes. The essay has to be written in a slipper-slope format therefore these quotes would be good to include and discuss in your essay:

"But it was the Boston Tea Party which finally outraged the massive traditional forces of British society." (pg. 24) -Britain thought they could easily take down the colonies because they believed the colonies hated one another. Britain thought that the colonies could easily be pulled apart and defeated. We can use this to show how although Britain thought we were weak we ended up becoming a huge super power despite the odds against us.

"New Yorkers dumped their tea into the East River. Philadelphia allowed the chests to be landed and then left to rot in the warehouse..." (pg. 68) -The dumping of the tea at Boston Harbor was the first of many to dump and refuse to drink Britain's tea. We can use this to show how the first dumping of the tear influenced many other colonies and locations to also dump their tea in rebeliance against Britain. We can also use this to show how the colonies came together to rebel against Britain and stand on their own.

Davis, D. (1998). Mintz, S. (1998). //The Boisterous Sea Of Liberty: A Documentary History of America From Discovery Through the Civil War.// New York: Oxford University Press.

"Britain responded to the Boston Tea Party with outrage. Convinced that rebels in Boston had to be taught a lesson, Parliament passed several laws that the colonists called the "intolerable Acts."..." (pg. 162) -We can use this quote to show just how affected Britain was by the Boston Tea Party and how although they tried to create new laws to prevent this from happening again, they couldn't stop the colonies from becoming stronger.