The Tea Act of 1773 was enacted by Parliament to increase pressures on the Colonial people and enhance the wealth of the British crown. The Tea Act allowed the East India Company to sell directly to American distributors and bypassing wholesalers when they sold tea. This way, the British would be able to knock out the middle man to sell directly to the people at a higher price and causing businesses that sold these products to close down.
The famous Boston Tea Party of 1773, where Colonists disguised themselves as Indians and boarded three British ships, dumping 342 barrels of British tea into the harbor, is evidence of the anger this action caused. Because the Colonists did not have representation in Parliament, they did not believe they should have to pay for British debts. The Colonists became more enraged with each new act of taxation forcing the Colonists to pay for British economical advances until they finally came together to protest the harsh treatment by the British and met in two meetings that would eventually lead to a declaration of independence for the oppressors, the British.
Boston Massacre
Tensions rose from an already burgeoning fire of anger in 1770 when Captain Thomas Preston fired into a protesting crowd killing five people in Boston, MA. The Boston Massacre was a result of the raising of taxes, yet again, on tea and other luxuries the Colonial people liked to buy. In response, the British Government repealed all of the Townshend Acts of 1767 except the tea tax. They kept the tea tax as a signal to the Colonists that they would do what they want regardless of any intimidation. On the 5th of March 1770, a mob of colonists attacked the British soldiers, throwing snowballs, stones and sticks. Several colonists were killed and many more wounded when 50 people attacked the soldiers on a street in Boston, MA. This event was one of the precursors to the final push for independence from the British.
After the Boston Tea Party of 1773, Parliament closed the Boston Harbor to all trade, forbade any town meetings more than once a year, and appointed a general to serve as royal governor of MA... among other punishments geared to making the Colonists regret what they had done. The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in an effort to first find a peaceful reconciliation with England, but talk soon turned to rebellion.
Source:
Thackeray, Frank W. Events that Changed America in the Eighteenth Century. Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Publishing, Inc., 1998.
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