This act began on May 10, 1773 and its main purpose was to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy by selling cheap tea to the American colonies. The British East India Company had to be saved because it was one of Great Britain’s main sources of income. Not only did it provide Great Britain with money because of the pompous amount of trade, but it also provided them with ten percent of the governemnt’s annual revenues (chech if plagurized). The British believed that by enforcing this act they would be helping both the British and the American colonists. However, the colonists were far from happy when they heard about the Tea Act, especially the merchants. Many merchans relied on the smuggling of tea from Great Britain as their source of income. With the Tea Act in place, the merchants would not be able to smuggle any tea, therefore loosing their businesses. The American ships taking part in the tea trade would also be ignored. This aggravated the colonists because only ships owned by the East India Company would carry tea. Most importantly, they did not want to show Great Britain any signs of weakness which would be shown by purchasing the tea (“The Tea Act”). This then lead the colonist to make a change, by taking …show more content…
They all dressed as Mohawk Indians to hide their identity, because destroying the tea was a severe crime and could result in the punishment of death. Therefore, the colonists did all they could to hide their identity. As Joshua Wyeth said: “To prevent discovery we agreed to wear ragged clothes and disfigure ourselves, dressing to resemble Indians as much as possible, smearing our faces with grease and lamp black or soot, and should not have known each other except by our voices ”(qtd. in “The Boston Tea Party”). The leaders of each group asked the Captains of the Dartmouth, Beaver, and Elanor to open the hatches to the cargo decks. Then they hauled up all the cargos onto the main deck and for the next three hours dumped over 45 tons of tea into the Boston Harbor (“The Boston Tea Party”). This resulted in the vengeance of the British