The destruction of the tea in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773, has been widely viewed as a catalyst in turning American resistance to Britain into outright rebellion. Was “the Tea Party” in protest to taxes the English government put on tea in the detested Tea Act?  The phrase “no taxation without representation,” today so closely associated with the American rebellion, had had a long history in Ireland’s relations to Britain. James Otis, Benjamin Franklin, and other colonial as well as English radicals picked up the persuasive argument in 1764 at the time of the American Stamp Act.  But in the case of the tea tax, this Chinese beverage had been taxed from its first appearance on English soil. In fact, as indicated above, Americans were not even buying their tea from England.  So would the issue of “taxation without representation” really have the force necessary to mobilize the vast majority of colonial Americans?

A step-by-step examination of the regulations and taxes leading to the dramatic step of the Tea Party does not support that contention.  From the mid-17^th century, English Navigation Acts had restricted colonial American trade. Duties on foreign commodities had always been part of English trade whether in the colonies or at home. 

Restrictive legislation “without representation”:

1651 – Navigation Acts
1663 – Staple Act, required a stop IN England
1698-1704 – East India Company Act, reaffirms monopoly of EIC 
1733 – Molasses Act, heavy duties on molasses of French islands
1750 – Iron Act, to restrict American manufacturing activities
1763 - Proclamation of 1763, prohibited settlement west
1764 - Sugar Act, increased duties on imported sugar and other items 
1764 - Currency Act, prohibited issuing any legal tender paper money. 
1765 - Stamp Act, imposed the first direct tax on the American colonies.
1765 - Quartering Act required colonists to house British troops 
1766 - Declaratory Act
1767 - Townshend Revenue Acts
1770 - Boston Massacre
1770 - Townshend Acts repealed, except for tea
1773- Tea Act
1774 - Coercive Acts

In the 1730s, England placed heavy taxes on molasses from non-British islands to protect British sugar planters.  Northern colonial merchants were dependent on this trade—for the rum they sent to Africa, among other things.  They were unfazed, however, easily getting around the tax by smuggling.

The Molasses Act was replaced in 1764 by the stricter Sugar Act, which resulted in some protest, especially in Boston, but was relatively mild compared to the Stamp Act the following year. The Stamp Act was the first direct tax imposed on the Anglo-American colonies and resulted in street protests, house attacks, and boycotts of British goods.  Notably there were protests in England as well as in America, as merchants on both sides of the Atlantic stood to lose money.  Notable also was that local patriots, Sons of Liberty, disavowed the mob violence!  This was a time of economic depression in the colonies and people took to the streets in protests as they had always done when hungry.  These street protests veered away from any specific political issue or ideology.

When the Stamp Act was repealed in March of 1766, everyone celebrated, despite the quiet and simultaneous passage of the Declaratory Act, which gave the English Parliament even broader repressive powers to tax and regulate the colonists.  This act stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's right to pass laws that were directly binding on the American colonies. No one in America protested.

Even before the infamous Stamp Act, other repressive mandates had come down from London with no unified protests, including the Proclamation of 1763 prohibiting the colonists from expanding further westward; the Currency Act outlawing the printing of colonial money; and the Quartering Act, forcing colonists to house British soldiers and pay their expenses, including tavern bills.  There had been isolated acts of resistance, especially to this last piece of legislation, but nothing countrywide and few protests that cut across class.

In 1767, using power granted in the Declaratory Act, parliament imposed the Townshend Revenue Acts, which included taxes on paint, paper, lead, glass, and tea.  Tea in this bag of goods accounted for lower revenues to Crown but was still considered important enough to include. After all, despite the loss of a good part of the American market to smuggling, the English East India Company had, nevertheless, become dependent on the American consumer as an outlet for its ever-growing inventory of tea.  Merchants on both sides of the Atlantic organized protests to the Townshend taxes.  Small-scale consumer boycotts were not at all successful. Ultimately Americans saw no urgent need to discipline themselves as they viewed the act as primarily an affair of merchants.

Meanwhile, the increasing presence of British military on American streets, and the provisions of the Quartering Act requiring that Americans pay for their bills, resulted in the Boston Massacre. Most people know that in this event British soldiers, provoked by taunts, gunned down of a group of American sailors and dock workers in 1770.  What many don’t know is that John Adams, a Son of Liberty, defended the English soldiers against American claims in court and won, considering the trial the high point of his career.  The jury, made up exclusively of Americans, sided with Adams.  British soldiers could shoot and kill five American men—one of whom, Samuel Maverick, was even the son of a very old New England family—not only without major protest, but with a concerted effort by Americans to defend those soldiers.  Restrictive legislation, taxes, and outright violence from the British had yet to touch American hearts and minds.

In 1770 the Townshend Duties were repealed, except for the tax on tea. No one protested. Perhaps the fact that so much tea imported into the colonies was smuggled in at low cost and tax-free was one reason why.  Perhaps paying taxes to Britain was not in fact the spark that motivated Americans to rebel.  As noted, English tea had always been taxed. Despite the contemporary rhetoric from Samuel Adams, built on arguments articulated by Otis, Franklin, et al, it seems that Americans remained unthreatened by English legislation, unmoved by “no taxation without representation.”