Which event involved colonists dumping tea into Boston Harbor, prompting the British response known as the Intolerable Acts?

• A. Boston Massacre
• B. Boston Tea Party
• C. Lexington and Concord
• D. Tea Act

Answer: (B)

Dumping tea into Boston Harbor was the Boston Tea Party, a deliberate act of colonial protest against the Tea Act that granted the East India Company a monopoly and taxed tea. The colonists argued that Parliament taxed them without representation, and the destruction of the tea showed a willingness to defy imperial authority. This action led Parliament to respond with the Coercive Acts, known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774, aimed at punishing Massachusetts and tightening British control. The measures included closing Boston Harbor and restructuring colonial government, which only intensified colonial resistance and helped push the colonies toward greater unity and eventual independence. The Boston Massacre was an earlier deadly clash, Lexington and Concord were later battles, and the Tea Act was the policy behind the protest, not the act of protest itself.