WEBVTT 00:00:15.037 --> 00:00:17.677 You've probably heard of the Boston Tea Party, 00:00:17.677 --> 00:00:19.466 something about a bunch of angry colonists 00:00:19.466 --> 00:00:21.058 dressed as Native Americans 00:00:21.058 --> 00:00:23.148 throwing chests of tea into the water. 00:00:23.148 --> 00:00:24.842 But the story is far more complicated, 00:00:24.842 --> 00:00:26.207 filled with imperial intrigue, 00:00:26.207 --> 00:00:27.480 corporate crisis, 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:28.190 smuggling, 00:00:28.190 --> 00:00:31.752 and the grassroots origins of the American Revolution. 00:00:31.752 --> 00:00:34.669 The first thing you need to know about tea in the 1700's 00:00:34.669 --> 00:00:36.742 is that it was really, really popular. 00:00:36.742 --> 00:00:38.759 In England, each man, woman, and child 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:42.032 consumed almost 300 cups of this stuff every year. 00:00:42.032 --> 00:00:44.661 And, since the English colonized America, 00:00:44.661 --> 00:00:47.411 Americans were crazy about tea too. 00:00:47.411 --> 00:00:48.803 By the 1760's, they were drinking 00:00:48.803 --> 00:00:51.289 over a million pounds of tea every year. 00:00:51.289 --> 00:00:53.375 So, when Britain wanted to increase taxes 00:00:53.375 --> 00:00:54.534 on tea in America, 00:00:54.534 --> 00:00:55.726 people were not happy, 00:00:55.726 --> 00:00:58.088 mostly because they had no say in tax decisions 00:00:58.088 --> 00:00:59.547 made in London. 00:00:59.547 --> 00:01:00.610 Remember that famous phrase, 00:01:00.610 --> 00:01:02.628 "No taxation without representation"? 00:01:02.628 --> 00:01:04.600 The American colonists had long believed 00:01:04.600 --> 00:01:07.566 that they were not subject to taxes imposed by legislature 00:01:07.566 --> 00:01:09.684 in which they lacked representation. 00:01:09.684 --> 00:01:11.352 In fact, rather than paying the taxes, 00:01:11.352 --> 00:01:13.695 they simply dodged the tax collectors. 00:01:13.695 --> 00:01:16.775 Since the east coast of America is hundreds of miles long 00:01:16.775 --> 00:01:18.595 and British enforcement was lax, 00:01:18.595 --> 00:01:20.779 about 3/4 of the tea Americans were drinking 00:01:20.779 --> 00:01:23.198 was smuggled in, usually from Holland. 00:01:23.198 --> 00:01:24.826 But the British insisted that Parliament 00:01:24.826 --> 00:01:27.120 did have the authority to tax the colonists, 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.161 especially after Britain went deeply into debt 00:01:29.161 --> 00:01:31.421 fighting the French in the Seven Years' War. 00:01:31.421 --> 00:01:32.375 To close the budget gap, 00:01:32.375 --> 00:01:33.792 London looked to Americans, 00:01:33.792 --> 00:01:37.964 and in 1767 imposed new taxes on a variety of imports, 00:01:37.964 --> 00:01:40.513 including the American's beloved tea. 00:01:40.513 --> 00:01:42.223 America's response: no thanks! 00:01:42.223 --> 00:01:44.219 They boycotted the importation of tea from Britain, 00:01:44.219 --> 00:01:45.972 and instead, brewed their own. 00:01:45.972 --> 00:01:48.521 After a new bunch of British customs commissioners 00:01:48.521 --> 00:01:51.210 cried to London for troops to help with tax enforcement, 00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:52.416 things got so heated 00:01:52.416 --> 00:01:54.674 that the Red Coats fired on a mob in Boston, 00:01:54.674 --> 00:01:55.957 killing several people, 00:01:55.957 --> 00:01:58.408 in what was soon called the Boston Massacre. 00:01:58.408 --> 00:02:00.651 Out of the terms of the 1773 Tea Act, 00:02:00.651 --> 00:02:02.905 Parliament cooked up a new strategy. 00:02:02.905 --> 00:02:05.241 Now the East India Company would sell the surplus tea 00:02:05.241 --> 00:02:08.776 directly through hand-picked consignees in America. 00:02:08.776 --> 00:02:10.238 This would lower the price to consumers, 00:02:10.238 --> 00:02:12.855 making British tea competitive with the smuggled variety 00:02:12.855 --> 00:02:14.783 while retaining some of the taxes. 00:02:14.783 --> 00:02:16.365 But the colonists saw through the British ploy 00:02:16.365 --> 00:02:18.272 and cried, "Monopoly!" 00:02:18.272 --> 00:02:21.664 Now it's a cold and rainy December 16, 1773. 00:02:21.664 --> 00:02:23.757 About 5,000 Bostonians are crowded 00:02:23.757 --> 00:02:25.426 into the Old South Meeting House, 00:02:25.426 --> 00:02:27.262 waiting to hear whether new shipments of tea 00:02:27.262 --> 00:02:28.736 that have arrived down the harbor 00:02:28.736 --> 00:02:30.431 will be unloaded for sale. 00:02:30.431 --> 00:02:32.099 When the captain of one of those ships reported 00:02:32.099 --> 00:02:34.344 that he could not leave with his cargo on board, 00:02:34.344 --> 00:02:35.821 Sam Adams rose to shout, 00:02:35.821 --> 00:02:38.899 "This meeting can do no more to save the country!" 00:02:38.899 --> 00:02:41.566 Cries of "Boston Harbor a teapot tonight!" 00:02:41.566 --> 00:02:42.916 rang out from the crowd, 00:02:42.916 --> 00:02:43.892 and about 50 men, 00:02:43.892 --> 00:02:45.989 some apparently dressed as Native Americans, 00:02:45.989 --> 00:02:47.818 marched down to Griffin's Wharf, 00:02:47.818 --> 00:02:49.485 stormed aboard three ships, 00:02:49.485 --> 00:02:52.690 and threw 340 tea chests overboard. 00:02:52.690 --> 00:02:54.537 An infuriated British government responsded 00:02:54.537 --> 00:02:57.461 with the so-called Coercive Acts of 1774, 00:02:57.461 --> 00:02:59.423 which, among other things, 00:02:59.423 --> 00:03:02.155 closed the port of Boston until the locals compensated 00:03:02.155 --> 00:03:04.102 the East India Company for the tea. 00:03:04.102 --> 00:03:05.093 That never happened. 00:03:05.093 --> 00:03:06.686 Representatives of the colonies 00:03:06.686 --> 00:03:08.310 gathered at Philadelphia to consider 00:03:08.310 --> 00:03:11.666 how best to respond to continued British oppression. 00:03:11.666 --> 00:03:14.830 This first Continental Congress supported destruction of the tea, 00:03:14.830 --> 00:03:17.248 pledged to support a continued boycott, 00:03:17.248 --> 00:03:20.023 and went home in late October 1774 00:03:20.023 --> 00:03:22.274 even more united in their determination 00:03:22.274 --> 00:03:24.389 to protect their rights and liberties. 00:03:24.389 --> 00:03:26.814 The Boston Tea Party began a chain reaction 00:03:26.814 --> 00:03:28.210 that led with little pause 00:03:28.225 --> 00:03:29.696 to the Declaration of Independence 00:03:29.696 --> 00:03:30.995 and a bloody rebellion, 00:03:30.995 --> 00:03:33.762 after which the new nation was free to drink its tea, 00:03:33.762 --> 00:03:35.958 more or less, in peace.