Reading in a single sitting 一口气读完这段历史

The Boston Tea Party arose from two issues confronting the British Empire in 1773: the financial problems of the British East India Company, and an ongoing dispute about the extent of Parliament's authority, if any, over the British American colonies without seating any elected representation. The North Ministry' s attempt to resolve these issues produced a showdown that would eventually result in revolution.

As Europeans developed a taste for tea in the 17th century, rival companies were formed to import the product from the East Indies. In England, Parliament gave the East India Company a monopoly on the importation of tea in 1698. When tea became popular in the British colonies, Parliament sought to eliminate foreign competition by passing an act in 1721 that required colonists to import their tea only from Great Britain. The East India Company did not export tea to the colonies; by law, the company was required to sell its tea wholesale at auctions in England. British firms bought this tea and exported it to the colonies, where they resold it to merchants in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston.

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea coming into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.

The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Protesters had successfully prevented the unloading of taxed tea in three other colonies, but in Boston, embattled Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented.

The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, which, among other provisions , closed Boston' s commerce until the British East India Company had been repaid for the destroyed tea. Colonists in turn responded to the Coercive Acts with additional acts of protest, and by convening the First Continental Congress, which petitioned the British monarch for repeal of the acts and coordinated colonial resistance to them. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.

According to historian Alfred Young, the term "Boston Tea Party" did not appear in print until 1834. Before that time, the event was usually referred to as the "destruction of the tea". According to Young, American writers were for many years apparently reluctant to celebrate the destruction of property, and so the event was usually ignored in histories of the American Revolution. This began to change in the 1830 s, however, especially with the publication of biographies of George Robert Twelves Hewes, one of the few still-living participants of the "tea party", as it then became known.

波士顿倾茶事件又称波士顿茶党事件（Boston Tea Party），指1773年发生的北美殖民地波士顿人民反对英国东印度公司垄断茶叶贸易的事件。1773年，英国政府为倾销东印度公司的积存茶叶，通过了《救济东印度公司条例》。该条例给予东印度公司到北美殖民地销售积压茶叶的专利权，免缴高额的进口关税，只征收轻微的茶税。条例明令禁止殖民地贩卖“私茶”。东印度公司因此垄断了北美殖民地的茶叶运销，其输入的茶叶价格较“私茶”便宜百分之五十。该条例引起北美殖民地人民的极大愤怒，人们饮用的走私茶占消费量的十分之九。纽约、费城、查尔斯顿人民拒绝卸运茶叶。

Key Words in History 历史关键词

1. Townshend Acts 唐森德税法

The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. The acts are named for Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who proposed the program. Historians vary slightly in which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five laws are frequently mentioned: the Revenue Act of 1767, the Indemnity Act, the Commissioners of Customs Act, the Vice Admiralty Court Act, and the New York Restraining Act.

The purpose of the Townshend Acts was to raise revenue in the colonies to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would be independent of colonial rule, to create a more effective means of enforcing compliance with trade regulations, to punish the province of New York for failing to comply with the 1765 Quartering Act, and to establish the precedent that the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies. The Townshend Acts were met with resistance in the colonies, prompting the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768, which eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770.

As a result of the massacre in Boston, Parliament began to consider a motion to partially repeal the Townshend duties. Most of the new taxes were repealed, but the tax on tea was retained. The British government continued in its attempt to tax the colonists without their consent, however, and the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution followed.

2. Sons of Liberty 自由之子

The Sons of Liberty was a political group made up of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies. The group was formed to protect the rights of the colonists from the usurpations by the British government after 1766. They are best known for undertaking the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which led to the Intolerable Acts (an intense crackdown by the British government), and a counter-mobilization by the Patriots that led directly to the American Revolution in 1775.

3. Tea Act 茶叶法

The Tea Act was an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain to expand the British East India Company' s monopoly on the tea trade to all British Colonies, selling excess tea at a reduced price. (13 Geo III c.44, long title An act to allow a drawback of the duties of customs on the exportation of tea to any of his Majesty' s colonies or plantations in America; to increase the deposit on bohea tea to be sold at the East India Company' s sales; and to empower the commissioners of the treasury to grant licenses to the East India Company to export tea duty-free.) It was passed on May 10, 1773.

4. Samuel Adams 塞谬尔·亚当斯

As an influential official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Boston Town Meeting in the 1760 s, Adams was a part of a movement opposed to the British Parliament' s efforts to tax the British American colonies without their consent. His 1768 circular letter calling for colonial cooperation prompted the occupation of Boston by British soldiers, eventually resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770. To help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government' s attempts to violate the British Constitution at the expense of the colonies, in 1772 Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution. Accounts written in the 19th century praised him as someone who had been steering his fellow colonists towards independence long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.

Background Knowledge 背景知识补充

波士顿倾茶事件是一场由马萨诸塞波士顿居民对抗英国国会的政治示威。它是北美人民反对殖民统治暴力行动的开始，是美国革命的关键点之一。

由于约翰·汉考克领导抵制英国政府所经营的英属东印度公司，致使其茶叶销量一落千丈，1773年英国国会颁布茶税法，以帮助本国商人向北美倾销，并由英属东印度公司垄断茶叶贸易。1773年12月16日，一批茶叶被运到波士顿港口，自由之子——由60个当地人组织而成——打扮成印地安人偷偷摸到三艘船上，将船上货物捣毁，并将342箱茶叶倒入港口内，整个过程相当平和安静。不过此举被认为是对殖民政府的挑衅，英国政府派兵镇压，终于导致1775年4月美国独立战争的第一声枪响。

北美人民为什么要拒绝比自己进口还要便宜一半的东印度公司的茶叶呢？东印度公司倾销的茶叶虽然比较便宜，但那是为了打压本土的价格倾销，当时北美人民提倡自由的意愿特别强烈，他们不想看到这样的结局。因为一时价格的便宜打压了本土的茶叶销售，导致很多靠走私和种植本地茶叶的商人无法生存，最终导致茶叶渠道完全落入英国的东印度公司手中，那时茶叶价格将被操纵，违反了市场公平竞争。假如北美人民都饮用了东印度公司倾销的茶叶，那么北美人民自己生产出来的茶叶销售就会受影响，北美人民的利益就会受到损害。另外，北美人民认为东印度公司是英国扶植的，假如他们饮用东印度公司的茶叶，就等于他们还要继续受英国殖民者的压迫、剥削。 8u2h0Flz1J6btxSJKhh5J+/x/bDTJBrSyKIRzukfRaHkqUd6NqXhcPFYzaxaumE2