On Tue, 23 Feb 2010, Shane Mage wrote:
>> Okay Shane, I'll bite. How was the protest agains the Tea Act a
>> protest against a tax cut?
>
> The East India Company had a legal monopoly over the importation of tea
> into British Colonies. The profits were large. The King wanted more of
> them, so he put a tax on the importation of tea into New England. This
> raised the price of tea so much that the colonists got angry. But not
> for long, because enterprising New Englander patriots began to smuggle
> tea in at a price much lower than the taxed price. Soon, all the tea
> drunk in New England was smuggled tea. The patriots were very happy.
> But the East India Company wasn't, and told the King as much. The king
> was crazy, but not so crazy as not to know who he couldn't say no to. So
> the King repealed the tea tax. That made the patriots very unhappy.
> So they organized a boycott of English tea, and informed their less
> patriotic neighbors that the drinking of unsmuggled tea would be
> dangerous to their health--by dressing up as the feared savages and
> vandalizing a commercial ship carrying tea.
I'll be damned. After checking a bit with google, I have to agree this is basically true. (And the parts that are simplified are mercifully so; why are tax details always so painfully boring?) I'm glad I asked. I learned something. Thanks.
Michael