It’s probable that everyone who has taken a U.S. history course or watched movies about early colonial history knows basic facts about the Tea Act and the subsequent reaction by Boston’s Sons of Liberty. Right? If this were a movie, the scene would go dark and then focus on a group of pretend Mohawks slipping from the shadows and boarding a British ship in Boston Harbor. Graphic. But the story is more detailed than a few snapshots. Sometimes our history texts skim over the details, and in this pivotal series of events, the details are important.

On May 10, 1773, Parliament passed a bill — the Tea Act — granting the British East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the British colonies. The legislation would eventually ignite a “powder keg” in the colonies. Why?

It’s a convoluted story. Before the passage of the Tea Act, the East India Company was required to sell its tea at auction in London, and only in London. Moreover, the company paid a tax based on the number of pounds sold. The Tea Act ended this arrangement and authorized the sale of tea to the American colonies, waiving all British taxes and duty charges. The 17 million pounds of surplus tea could then be sold directly to the colonies at a reduced price, but with the tax burden that the Townshend Act had authorized for the colonies still in place. Even with the tax added, the tea sold by the East India Company undercut the price charged by colonial merchants who were outraged. Their businesses were at risk of failure.

How would that outrage translate into action?

First, Philadelphia and New York City simply refused to allow the tea ships to dock and off-load their cargoes. In other port cities, the tea was unloaded but allowed to remain on the docks and deteriorate. But let’s be honest: Boston always walked its own path. Three ships — the Beaver, Dartmouth, and Eleanor — arrived in Boston in late November and early December 1773. The colonists refused to unload the ships and demanded that they leave dock and return to England. Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, also Chief Justice, stepped in, flexed his royal authority, and refused to allow the ships to leave port.

A battle line had been drawn, and the Sons of Liberty began planning a response to British authority and the imposition of taxes that were viewed once again as a violation of the “rights of Englishmen.”

Their plan unfolded on the evening of December 16, 1773, when approximately 340 chests of East India Company tea was dumped in Boston Harbor. (Ship logs and other records differ on the number of chests involved.) Dressed as indigenous people — most witnesses claimed the culprits were Mohawk — the Sons of Liberty boarded the Dartmouth and dumped the chests of tea. Interestingly, no member of the crew was hurt, and the “natives” swept the decks after dumping the tea so that they did not add chores for the crew. Their argument clearly was with Parliament, not the ship’s crew. Only nine days later, on Christmas Day, Philadelphia’s patriots forced the Polly, a ship also transporting tea, to return home to England.

On the day after the Boston Tea Party, John Adams wrote in his diary, “This is the most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire. The People should never rise without doing something to be remembered — something notable and striking. This Destruction of the Tea is so bold … an Epocha in History.”

Yes, this is the same John Adams who had served as legal counsel for the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. In this case, Adams understood that the imposition of taxes and a monopoly for the East India Company were premeditated actions, designed to force the colonists into submission. It was, in his mind, a violation of the English Bill of Rights and common law.

This united action against the East India Company and Parliament is significant, as it was the second tax revolt by the English colonies. The little-known Pine Tree Riot had occurred in 1772 in New Hampshire when the Crown chose to fine timbermen for harvesting trees for shipbuilding and sales.

Three strong actions against the Crown would cause a reaction in London. Just what that reaction would be remained to be seen.