uty on tea. This was expectable to most colonists because most of them drank smuggled tea anyway. The trouble began when Britain granted a monopoly to the British East India Company to sell tea to the colonies. This was done to help this ailing company, because if it went under the London government would lose heavily in tax revenue. However, the perception of the colonists was that the British were trying to force them to drink the tea from their company. This again angered the colonists, who were getting paranoid of a domineering Britain. A famous protest was organized where a protest group called the Sons of Liberty dressed as Indians and threw tea off a British ship. This came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. After the Boston Tea Party, Britain was sick of America's protest. They began to send soldiers to Boston to take control of the situation. They also reaffirmed their power by passing an Act which said that parliament had complete power over the colonies. They also passed a Quartering Act, in order to house soldiers in Boston's civilian homes. This new found military presence angered the colonists. One night, an angry mob began throwing snowballs at some soldiers. Confusion set in and the British fired and killed 5 Bostonians. This became known as the Boston Massacre, and from then on the British were then printed in the American mind as ruthless tyrants and savages.After the Boston Massacre, Britain passed the Coercive Acts (called the Intolerable Acts in America) and along with this was a new Quartering Act and the Boston Port Act. Where they closed the Boston port until the damages of the Boston Tea Party were paid off. These acts made Boston a military district ruled by the English General Gage. The British thought that the other colonies would stay out of this situation, but they were wrong. The other colonies formed into a body called the Continental Congress, which was an extra legal body, which was elected to organiz...
