CR - Boston Tea Party

Question 1

When did Lord North become prime Minister?

Answer 1

1770

Question 2

What did Lord North do upon becoming Prime Minister?

Answer 2

• Replaced the hardline colonial secretary Hillsborough with the more conciliatory Earl of Dartmouth
• Repealed all but one of the Townshend duties (the duty on tea)

Question 3

Why was the EIC’s verge on bankruptcy relevant to Britain?

Answer 3

The EIC was one of Britain’s most important commercial institutions

Question 4

What was Lord North’s solution to the EIC’s financial crisis?

Answer 4

The Tea Act: (1773)

Question 5

When was the Tea Act instituted?

Answer 5

May 10th 1773

Question 6

What was the Tea Act (1773)?

Answer 6

• Permitted the EIC to export directly to the colonies - meaning that the EIC would receive a tax break in Britain (& North could retained the 3d per pound Townshend Duty)
• Colonial merchants, would be appointed, known as consignees, to sell tea on the company’s behalf
• The consignees could afford to sell the tea more cheaply than colonial merchants/smugglers, effectively granting the EIC a monopoly for selling tea in the colonies
• In acknowledgement of the tax being politically sensitive, the EIC unsuccessfully attempted to conceal the Townshend Duty to the colonists

Question 7

What was the colonists response to the Tea Act?

Answer 7

• Sons of Liberty began a campaign - to compel the consignees to resign etc.
• In every colony except Massachusetts the consignees were forced to resign or go back to England

Question 8

What was the core for the protest movement around The Tea Act?

Answer 8

• It was not a dispute about high taxes (the price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by The Tea Act)
• The “No taxation without representation argument”
  -Infringement of colonial rights
• Colonial merchants were upset because the act threatened to put smugglers out of business

Question 9

What was the name of the initial ship involved with the Boston Tea Party?

Answer 9

The Dartmouth

Question 10

What did Samuel Adams do after the tea ship, The Dartmouth, arrived in the Boston Harbour, in late November of 1773?

Answer 10

Samuel Adams called for a mass meeting to be held - thousands of people arrived
( for context, British law required the Dartmouth to unload and pay the duties within 20 days)
- the meeting passed a resolution, introduced by Adams, urging the captain of Dartmouth to send the ship back without the import duty & assigned 25 men to watch the ship and prevent the tea from being unloaded
- Hutchinson refused to grant permission for the Dartmouth to leave without paying the duty
- 2 more ships then arrived in Boston harbour

Question 11

What happened after the two additional ships arrived in the Boston Harbour - and a secondary report being received from Hutchinson that refused the ships to leave?

Answer 11

• The crowd of 5000-7000 people who gathered at the Old South Meeting House poured out of the meeting house to prepare to take action
• That evening around 60 sons of liberty (some dressed in Mohawk warrior disguises boarded the 3 vessels and dumped all the tea into the water

Question 12

How much tea was dumped into the harbour?

Answer 12

All 342 chests (amounting to a modern equivalent of around £1.3 million)