Colonists Cup Of Tea Essay

Not the Colonist’s Cup of Tea There was a lot of tension between the England and the English colonies in North America during the 1700s. England saw the colonists as second-class citizens. The King and Parliament thought that they knew best for the colonists and made laws that England benefited from but the colonists suffered for. One of the unjust laws that the colonists had very little tolerance for was the tax on tea. The Boston Tea Party was the colonists respond to this tax. There were difficult events that caused it, the event itself, and the aftermath. The problems started around 1763, with the Proclamation of 1763. The Townshend Acts is the first event directly connected to the Boston Tea Party. The Townshend Acts were a bunch of little taxes on a bunch of everyday things including glass, lead, paper, and tea. The colonists felt that they should not have to pay extra for these goods when the English citizens, living in England, did not have to pay. The colonists saw themselves as English citizens. What else would they be? They left England to expand the empire to North America. They were doing what the King wanted. Yes, they did have things to gain from not being directly under the King's eye but they were still loyal to him. The King, Parliament, and the English citizens in England saw the colonists as dirty or second rate and had no trouble treating them as such. The colonists were done with being treated this way. They boycotted the tax and the King eventually gave in. He removed a few of the tax but not the tax on tea. Unfortunately, this did not work out exactly to the favor of the colonists. The King put a royal governor into power in Massachusetts instead of the people ran government they had. They also passed an act that simply said that Parliament had the power pass any law on the colonists they chose. It was basically a power play by England. The new royal governor was horrible to the people of Massachusetts, especially the people of Boston. The King also passed the Tea Act, which stated that the …show more content…
It took Parlement until spring of the next year to react. They punished the people of Boston with the Coercive Acts (also referred to as the Intolerable Acts). These acts did a few things but mostly it shut down the port of Boston until the tea is paid off. Nothing came in or out. Boston was and still is a major port town so this crippled it. Despite this, Boston still refused to pay for the tea. When the rest of the colonies heard about this, they band together to help Boston. They sent supplies from all over to them. This was the first time we see solidarity between the colonies.
The Boston Tea Party is a very important event in the coming of the revolution. The Boston Tea Party was meant as a message to England. The colonists would not stand by and be told what to buy and who to buy it from. The colonists were people and deserved to be treated as such. The deserved respect and a voice just as much as the people living in England. Even if England never got around to realizing or understanding this, the American people