The Boston Tea Party Essays

Below are three essays on the Boston Tea Party written by children of different ages.




The Boston Tea Party

Essay 1

In 1765, the king put a tax on lead, glass, paper, paint and tea. It upset the Colonists so much they decided to get even by not buying anything made in England. It was the English merchants who got angry about that. It cost them a lot of money and they demanded that the taxes be repealed. They were in 1770, except for the tax on tea. It was a small tax, but King George wanted to prove that he and Parliament could tax Americans if they wished to.

To the Colonists, that tea tax was an example of taxation without representation. So, in 1773, some people in Boston decided to show King George and Parliament and Lord Townshend what they thought of the tax on tea. They dressed up as Indians and climbed on a ship in Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of good English tea into the water. Americans called it the Boston Tea Party, but the English didn't. They called in an outrage.

(source, The History of US)


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Essay 2

The American people were angry with the British long before the Tea Act of 1771 that led to the Boston Tea Party. The Stamp Act of 1765 that placed a tax on nearly every paper transaction, the Townshend Act of 1767 that imposed new taxes on imported glass, lead, paper, paint and tea and also suspended the New York legislature until it agreed to quarter British soldiers, the occupation of the Colonies by British troops, and the Boston Massacre of 1770 infuriated the people. When the Townshend Act was repealed in 1770, the the Crown proved that it still retained the power to tax the Colonies by leaving the tax on tea. In addition, the Tea Act of 1773 was passed to subsidize the East India Company in the midst of its financial crisis by granting a monopoly of tea. This one-cent tax (44-cent inflation adjusted) outraged the American patriots, who called our for "no taxation without representation." A boycott of imported tea was established, the Americans instead drinking often nasty, homegrown 'liberty tea.' Despite this, American tea consumption continued to grow, and the East India Company sold more and more tea to the Colonists.

On December 17, 1773, seven thousand people waited to greet three ships bearing 90,000 lbs of tea. Among them were the Sons of Liberty who, dressed as Indians, ran aboard the ships and threw the 342 chests of tea into the ocean. Over one million of today's dollars worth of tea was lost in the sea at the hands of the patriots.

The tax on tea was small itself, but after all the British had done to America, it was the straw that started the Revolution.

(sources: Patriots, The Men Who Started the American Revolution, historycentral.com, bostonteapartyfacts.com)

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Essay 3


A crowd of seven thousand gathered to watch as the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Mohawk Indians and lead by Samuel Adams, boarded three British ships and threw 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor.

There were several trials held for the destruction of the ships cargo, but no one was ever convicted.

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was a protest against growing British control. The Tea Act was the last in a long string of parliamentary acts that curtailed the Colonial American freedoms. There was the Molasses Act of 1733, the Proclamation Act of 1763, the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townshend Act of 1767.

The Colonists were not appalled by the tax on tea in terms of the financial cost, but rather by who the tea act taxed and how it was enforced.

The tax on tea was a tax on everyone, not just the land owning voters. The Tea Act was especially bad for the American tea merchants, because it gave the East India Trading Company a monopoly on the sale of tea in the Americas. And there were only five men in the colonies that had East India Trading Company shipping contracts; Benjamin Franklin was one of those men. The rest of the merchants [those not holding a shipping contract] either went out of business or became tea smugglers like John Handcock.

The Boston Tea Party was in no way an isolated incident; there were similar tea parties in New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, and Charleston. Delaware had one only 9 days after the Boston Tea Party.

The reason everyone remembers the Boston Tea Party is because Samuel Adams was a master of propaganda and made sure the Boston Tea Party would go down in history.

Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts one year later, in 1774, to break the Colonies. But Parliament's plan backfired because the Intolerable Acts only served to unite the Colonies and strengthen their resolve to be a free and independent country.

(sources: The Patriots Guide to American History and Patriots, The Men Who Started the American Revolution)

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Turns out it wasn't a high tax that the Colonists were protesting, but the fact that Britain had the audacity to tax them without their consent. The merchants (small business owners) were hurt by the monopoly that was added to the Tea Act. The Tea Act was followed by the Intolerable Acts. Hmmm, sound familiar to anyone?