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The story behind the Boston Tea Party - Ben Labaree

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In 1773, American colonists were taxed heavily for importing tea from Britain. The colonists, not fans of "taxation without representation", reacted by dumping tea into the Boston Harbor, a night now known as the Boston Tea Party. Ben Labaree gets into the nitty-gritty of that famous revolutionary act.

Additional Resources for you to Explore

Benjamin W. Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (Oxford University Press, 1964)
Alfred Young, The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution (Beacon Press, 1999)
"A Shoemaker and the Tea Party" by George Robert Twelve Hewes
Announcement of the Boston Tea Party, December 20, 1773 from the Boston Gazette
See this site from The Massachusetts Historical Society for primary source materials related to the Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution
The Boston Tea Party was a symbolic event of the Revolution, but one can speculate with a good degree of certainty that it would not have occurred if not for the series of historic events in Boston and other colonies that preceded it. In his book, Encyclopedia of American History, Richard B. Morris a renowned historian and one of the former presidents of the Historical Association created a concise factual timeline of the major milestones that lead to the most famous American protest.
Boston Tea Party, Eyewitness Account by a Participant
The Tea Party movement has been staging major rallies around the country to protest taxes and government spending, including one in Boston, where the original Tea Party took place.
In 1773 a group of American revolutionaries threw tea into Boston Harbour to protest against rising British Taxes. The 'Boston Tea Party' has become a founding moment in American History and, ahead of the 2012 presidential elections; a 'Tea Party' is again making the US political weather. This republican small-government movement with real grass-roots power may hold the keys to the White House and it takes both its name and its slogan - no taxation without representation - directly from 1773.

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Meet The Creators

  • Educator Ben Labaree, Jr.
  • Director Nick Fox-Gieg
  • Narrator Ben Labaree, Jr.

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