Boston Tea Party for Kids | Learn about the History of the Boston Tea Party and why it happened

Welcome to the Boston Tea Party. In America's history, there was an event called the Boston Tea Party. This event was not a party though. It was a major protest that ended up starting a war. The war was called the American Revolution or the Revolutionary War. It was between the American colonists and the British government and took place in 1775. The war lasted 8 years. Back then, people who settled in various areas formed colonies which are kind of like our towns today. These people were called colonists. During that time, the American colonists had to pay a lot of taxes to the British who ruled over them. Today, we pay taxes too. Our taxes go to pay for things like schools, hospitals, roads, and libraries. Not everyone likes paying taxes but most people understand that some taxes are necessary. When you turn 18, you will have the right to vote. One of the things you will vote for is how your tax money is used. You might vote on something like whether to put in a public swimming pool or a park using your tax dollars. The problem the colonists had back in the 1700s was that the money they paid for taxes wasn't being used to help them. In fact, most of it was going to the British government to pay for their debts. Even though the colonists were paying taxes, they had no choice on how their taxes were being used. They also didn't get to choose who their leaders were or vote on any laws because they were ruled by the British. That doesn't seem very fair, does it? Well, colonists didn't think so either. The American colonists called this taxation without representation. During that time, the British government passed a law called the Tea Act. The Tea Act gave a British company who was struggling financially a way to earn more money. The British company was called the East India Company and it had 18 million pounds of tea that it needed to sell. The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to ship their unsold tea to the American colonies where it could be sold at a very low price. This seemed like a good thing. It would have helped the East India Company sell their tea plus the colonists could have bought it for a low price. However, there was a problem. Earlier, the British government had passed a law which taxed tea and some other things. The colonists were very angry with this law because they were already paying a lot of taxes. Imagine that your favorite soda in America is sold for $2 a can with tax. But the British government who makes your laws decides to add another 50 cents tax on every can of soda. You are upset because your soda was already being taxed and now there is an extra tax added. Plus, that money goes to the British government instead of helping your country. Now your soda is $2.50 so you decide to stop buying that soda in protest of the new tax. But you and your friends miss drinking your favorite soda. So you all come up with a plan. You go directly to the soda company and start to buy it from them for less money. You are happy because you get your soda back plus it doesn't have the extra tax. The British government eventually finds out what you and your friends are doing and they get mad. So now they come up with a plan. There is a British soda company that is trying to get rid of a lot of extra soda they couldn't sell. So the British government buys the soda for really cheap and then tells the British company to ship the soda to America because the soda was such a good deal. The British government plans to sell it for only $1 plus their additional $0.50 tax. They think this is a great plan. They are selling soda for less money than you can get it for. Plus, you have to pay their tax. Some Americans are happy because they get their favorite soda back. They don't care about the $0.50 tax because even with the tax, the soda is still less money than it was before. But you and your friends are mad because you think the British government has found a sneaky way to force you and other colonists to accept and pay their extra taxes on soda. So you and your friends decide one night to dress up in disguise and go to the docks where the ships are coming in with all the soda from Britain. You board those ships late one night and dump all the soda into the ocean in protest. But instead of soda, the story about the Boston Tea Party is about tea. The tea from the East India Tea Company was sent on ships to America to seaports in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, Annapolis, and Boston. But the colonists did not want it. They did not want to pay Britain's tea tax. In Philadelphia and New York, the colonists sent the ships back to Britain. In Charleston, the tea was unloaded from the ships, but it was left to rot on the docks. And in Annapolis, the ship and the tea were set on fire. However, Boston handled things a little differently. The royal governor in Boston, who was a British leader named Thomas Hutchinson, did not send the colonists wanted. Because he wouldn't send the ships back, the colonists would not allow the tea to be unloaded onto the dock. And on December 16, 1773, the Boston Tea Party happened. This was a political protest started by a group called the Sons of Liberty. The Sons of Liberty were a secret society of colonists in America who fought against Britain's taxes. This group is like you and your friends in the soda story. Their leader was named Samuel Adams. You may have heard his name before, as well as two other members of the secret society. John Hancock, who later became one of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, and Paul Revere, who warned the colonists that, The British are coming! During the American Revolution, the Sons of Liberty disguised themselves by painting their faces and dressing as Native Americans. They and the other protesters then boarded the ship that was loaded with tea and threw 340 chests of tea into the Boston harbor. The tea was ruined and could not be used. Even though the protesters were disguised as Mohawk Indians, the British knew who was responsible for destroying the tea. The amount of money that the tea was worth in today's money would be about one million dollars. That was a lot of money, especially back then. Many of the American leaders, like George Washington, did not agree with the way the Sons of Liberty protested. Neither did Benjamin Franklin. In fact, he insisted that the price of the ruined tea get paid back and even offered to pay for it himself. The British government was very angry at what had happened. To get back at the colonists, they passed new laws called the Intolerable Acts. These laws allowed British troops to stay in the colonists' houses whenever they wanted. The laws also banned town meetings. And they closed the Boston seaport until the price of the damaged tea was paid for. The Intolerable Acts were the last straw for the American colonists. They wanted to be free from Britain's rule and start their own country. On March 23, 1774, a future founding father of America, Patrick Henry, gave a speech in support of freedom from Britain. In it, he said one of the most famous lines in American history. Give me liberty or give me death. He inspired many people. Over the next year, conflict increased between the British rulers and the American colonists, and on April 19, 1775, the American Revolutionary War began. Because the American colonists won that war, they finally gained their independence from Britain and were now free. The colonists then started their own country, and the United States of America was born. Be sure to subscribe!