The repeal of most Townshend duties in 1770 (New Taxes and Colonial Protest) brought a few calm years, but British troops stayed in Boston and the tea tax remained. Between 1770 and 1774, a chain of events turned protest into open defiance.
Key idea
Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770) → Tea Act (May 1773) → Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773) → Coercive (Intolerable) Acts (1774) → First Continental Congress (September 1774).
Why it works
Each side's response raised the stakes for the other. Colonists destroyed the tea to defend the principle of no taxation without consent. Parliament answered by punishing Boston as a lesson to all, which convinced other colonies that their own rights could be next. A local quarrel in Massachusetts became a cause shared by twelve colonies.
- Boston Massacre: on March 5, 1770, British soldiers guarding the customs house fired into a crowd that was taunting them and throwing snowballs and sticks. Five colonists died, among them Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native descent. Paul Revere's engraving showed it as a deliberate slaughter. John Adams defended the soldiers in court; most were acquitted.
- Tea Act (1773): to save the struggling East India Company, Parliament let it sell tea directly in the colonies. The tea became cheaper, even with the tax, but buying it meant accepting the tax and a monopoly.
- Boston Tea Party: on December 16, 1773, colonists, some disguised as Mohawk Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor.
- Coercive Acts (1774), called the Intolerable Acts by colonists: they closed Boston's port until the tea was paid for, put Massachusetts government under tighter royal control, let royal officials be tried in other colonies or Britain, and widened the quartering of troops.
- First Continental Congress: delegates from twelve colonies (all but Georgia) met in Philadelphia from September 5, 1774. They adopted the Continental Association, a boycott of British goods enforced by local committees, and agreed to meet again if their grievances were not addressed.
Worked example: Why did a cheaper price cause a revolt?
The Tea Act lowered the price of tea. Why did colonists destroy it?
- Buying it meant paying the Townshend tea tax and accepting Parliament's right to tax.
- The law also gave one company a monopoly, which worried colonial merchants.
Answer: The principle of the tax, and the monopoly, not the price.
Common mistake
Two slips are common: putting these events in the wrong order (the Massacre of 1770 came three years before the Tea Party), and thinking the Tea Party protested a tax increase. The Tea Act raised no tax and lowered the price; colonists objected that it kept the tax and favored the East India Company.