What was the Patriots point of view of the Tea Act?

Answer 1

While the Tea Act passed by Parliament in May, 1773 was one of the major events leading to war with Great Britain, it was not designed to tax the colonies but to bail out the East India Tea Company, a private commercial trading company that was involved in trade with Asia. The company carried out many governmental and military functions in Asia for the Crown. As a reward, it was granted a monopoly of the trade in India. In 1773 the company was on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of mismanagement. It also had 17 million pounds of tea in London warehouses with no prospect of selling the tea. The British government agreed to allow the company exclusive right to sell the tea in the American colonies. The tea would be cheaper than the Dutch tea the Americans had been smuggling in since the Townshend Acts. Prime Minister North did away with all taxes on the tea except the Townshend levy, which was very small. Sam Adams and the Americans who wanted to uphold the principle, "no taxation without representation," knew that the tea would be purchased by colonial consumers if it were permitted to enter the harbors, be unloaded, and distributed to the stores. The result was the famous Boston Tea Party.

Answer 2

In the 1760's, the British government had passed a law called the Townshend Act. Colonists didn't like the idea of Parliament making them pay taxes even though they were not able to vote in Parliament's elections ("taxation without representation"). The Colonists also didn't like paying for the large British army that was staying in North America even though the French had been completely defeated and driven out in 1763. The British government misunderstood this; they believed the Colonists just didn't like paying taxes.

The Townshend Act tried to be sneaky and make the Colonists pay taxes without them knowing it. When stuff like tea, paper, glass, and so on, were sent from England to the Colonies, it would be taxed in England, then the price was raised a little bit to compensate, and then it would be shipped to America. So the Colonists weren't paying taxes, but they technically sort of were, and they knew it, and were upset about it. The government hoped that if the Colonists just went along with it, they would just get used to it and then Parliament could eventually start taxing them more.

So moving right along.... the British had one big company that was allowed to sell tea to the Colonies, the East India Company. But the Colonists didn't want to pay the sneaky Townshend tax (they didn't want to get used to it and get taxed more), so they started buying tea from Dutch traders instead- which was technically illegal, and considered smuggling by the British government. Since the Colonists weren't buying the British tea, the company was not making as much money as expected. The Tea Act was supposed to help them out.

The Tea Act made it so that the tea didn't have to be brought to England first before sending it to the Colonies. That would lower the cost by removing all the middlemen and speculators and so on. The hope was that the cheaper cost would cause the Colonists to stop illegally buying Dutch tea and start buying the legal (and secretly taxed) tea.

So the Patriots were totally against it. They didn't really care too much about the East India Company or its financial problems- if anything, they didn't like that there was only one company allowed to do the trading. They disliked that the British government was still trying to be sneaky with the Townshend taxes. They were still angry that they couldn't vote in Parliament's elections. So they showed that anger by dumping the East India Company's tea into Boston Harbor one night in December 1773.

Answer 3

The Patriots were upset because the Loyalists thought that they could put new taxes on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea.