The
Boston Tea Party (initially referred to by
John Adams as "
the Destruction of the Tea in Boston") was a political protest by the
Sons of Liberty in
Boston, on December 16, 1773. The demonstrators, some disguised as
Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of
tea sent by the
East India Company, in defiance of the
Tea Act of May 10, 1773. They boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into
Boston Harbor. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the
American Revolution. The Tea Party became an iconic event of American history, and other political protests such as the
Tea Party movement after 2010 explicitly refer to it.