The Tea Act of 1773 was indeed a significant piece of legislation passed by the British Parliament on May 10, 1773. It was designed to address the financial struggles of the British East India Company, which was facing financial difficulties due to a surplus of tea in its warehouses.
The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to bypass colonial tea merchants and sell its surplus tea directly to the American colonies, thereby eliminating the middlemen and reducing the price of tea for the colonists. However, the act also maintained the existing taxes on tea, which had been imposed by the Townshend Acts of 1767.
Despite the lower price of tea, many colonists opposed the Tea Act because it was seen as a violation of their rights to representation and self-governance. They believed that by allowing the British East India Company to monopolize the tea trade, the British government was exerting undue control over the colonies' economy.
The Tea Act ultimately led to the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, when a group of colonists, disguised as Native Americans, boarded British ships in Boston Harbor and dumped chests of tea into the water in protest against the Tea Act and British taxation without representation.
The British government responded to the Boston Tea Party with harsh measures, including the passage of the Coercive Acts (known as the Intolerable Acts in the colonies), which further escalated tensions between Britain and its American colonies, eventually leading to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775.
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