The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest on December 16, 1773, by the Sons of Liberty in Boston in colonial Massachusetts. The protest grew from resistance to parliamentary taxation and the Tea Act of 1773. In response, the Sons of Liberty, some disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. The demonstrators boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor.

The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, a law passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act believing it violated their rights as Englishmen to "no taxation without representation", that is, to be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a parliament in which they were not represented. The well-connected East India Company also had been granted competitive advantages over colonial tea importers, who resented the move and feared additional infringement on their business. Protesters had prevented the unloading of tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Great Britain.

The Boston Tea Party was a significant event that helped accelerate and intensify colonial support for the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Intolerable Acts, or Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions, ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed Boston's commerce. Colonists throughout the Thirteen Colonies responded to the Intolerable Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them, culminating in the October 1774 Continental Association.

The Tea Party followed months of dispute over the Tea Act and the East India Company’s privileged trade position. Boston meetings pressed consignees to resign and sought to send the tea ships back without paying duties. Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow a departure that bypassed customs rules. When the last permitted day arrived for one of the ships, a large meeting at Old South Meeting House could not obtain a solution.

Protesters then went to Griffin’s Wharf and emptied tea from the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver into Boston Harbor. They targeted cargo rather than seizing ships for themselves. Parliament answered with the Coercive Acts in 1774, provoking wider colonial resistance. Today’s Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum stands on Fort Point Channel, away from the original wharf, and uses replica vessels and performance to connect visitors with the political crisis.