Later in the year 1773 a bizarre event took place in Boston that had two important results. It hardened the feelings of the British against the Americans. It also united the colonists more than ever before. On December 16, 1773, American patriots dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded the vessels of the East Indian Company docked in the Boston harbor and dumped all the tea that was on the three ships into the ocean. They emptied 342 chests of tea, which was valued at more than 10,000 pounds. This event became known as the "Boston Tea Party."(Smith).
The events leading to the Boston Tea Party began already ten years before (1763), when the English won the French-and-Indian War. The king of Britain passed taxes on the colonies to make up for the loss of money because of the war. He did it in a line of acts, called the Sugar Act (tax to protect and secure the colonists) and the Stamp Act ( tax on all licenses, newspapers and business papers ). The colonists reacted with protests against those acts, what made the British Parliament to repeal the taxes within 5 months. Then they (the government) passed taxes on lead, paint, paper and tea. These acts were called the Townsend Duties, but the colonists called them the "Insidious Acts". Mass meetings were held and people tried to influence others not to buy English imported goods anymore. In the end the parliament removed all the taxes except for tea.
Actually the colonists easily didn't want to accept, to pay taxes to a government; they don't really belong to anymore. Although the tax on the cost of tea of a colonial family just pennies a year. Sam Adams, a kind of leader of the colonists, figured out, that the tax could be raised or lowered by the parliament at will. (Sam Adams: "The power to tax is the power to destroy!”). He also pointed out, that the colonists had no representation in the Parliament, and that they can't be taxed without having a representation in there, to care for their interests and wills...