What events led up to the Boston Tea Party?
Also in 1773, Parliament granted a monopoly on tea shipments to the East India Company, then nearly bankrupt. The Company, which did business only with Loyalist merchants, undercut other merchants, even smugglers. John Hancock, one of the country’s richest men and most threatened by the new tea policy, helped instigate the Boston Tea Party (December 17) when 150 men, dressed as Mohawk Indians, dumped the tea cargo of three ships into Boston harbor. The East India Company was holding a seven-year surplus of tea from India and could be financially ruined if it was not sold.
