Dbq On Boston Compromises

BOSTON MASSACHUSETTES: December 16, 1773. The Sons of Liberty are a group of colonists who organize in port cities to stop the East India Company from unloading their tea. In the Boston Harbor, they have been threatening captains bringing in the tea and the merchants who bought the tea. No tea was being unloaded in many ports because they were scared of the Sons of Liberty. However, in Boston the governor had decided to make sure that all tea was unloaded. He had refused the arriving ships’ captains’ papers they needed that would (continued)allow them to return back to England. As soon as the first ship had arrived in the harbor, the governor had demanded that the tea was to be unloaded. As things started to get tense in Boston, the Sons of

Liberty finally made their move. On December 16, 1773, a large crowd of colonists gathered in the harbor, when out of nowhere a large group of men disguised as Native Americans boarded the ships full of tea. For the next three hours they hauled up tea from bellow the decks, opened all the crates, and deposed of all the tea in the harbor all the while the crowds cheered them on. It was estimated that they had thrown 342 cases of tea into the harbor.

Joshua Wyeth /Boston tea party-Eye Witness Account

“We were merry in an undertone at the idea of making so large a cup of tea for the fishes, the Indians were as still as the nature of the case would admit, using no more words than where absolutely necessary”
“I was only sixteen years old when I had joined the patriots in their mission.

I had but a few hours of what we had intended to do. To prevent our discovery we had agreed to wear ragged closes and to disfigure ourselves to seem as if we were Indians. At the appointed hour we met at an old building by the wharf. When we were all there we fell in one after another as if by accident not to excite suspicion. We had a scout at the

end

of the wharf, one at the middle of the wharf and one at the bow of each ship as we took hold of the ship.

We mourned the ship by the wharf and ordered the captain and the crew to open the hatch ways. We had assured the captain and his men that we had no intension of harming them. As the chests were brought up from the below decks, men opened them with axes while others brought them to the sides of the ship and dumped the contents over board. This same process was repeated on each ship. This had been the hardest work he had ever done. As they had continued dumping the tea crowds gathered on the wharf as they kept going on.”

Robert Session / Boston Tea Party-Eye Witness Account

“I was but a young man whose home relations where in Connecticut. I was not one who was appointed to destroy the tea but I was just a volunteer. We had seen that there was too small of a group to throw all the tea overboard so young men that where just like me who did not live hear decided to pitch in and help throw the tea over with them. Perfect regularity prevailed during the whole transaction. Although there were many colonists people on the wharf entire silence was kept no clamor,

no talking. When we were done on the boat we swept the boat clean and everything put in its proper place we had meddled with nothing else but the tea.”

.

Alexander Hodgons /Boston Tea Party-Eye Witness

Account

“It was between six and seven o’clock in the evening when about one thousand men came down to the wharf dressing and whooping like Indians. They were boarding the ships and they warned me and the custom officer to get out of the way, they opened the hatches where there where eighty whole and thirty-four half chests of tea. They brought up the tea on the deck and cut the chests to pieces and heaved the tea all overboard where it was damaged and lost.”
This event is important because it leads to many more problems down the road and it also infuriated the king. This leads to them closing the harbor in Boston, giving the royal governor more power and reinforcing and making the Quartering Act stronger. It also leads to the down fall of our relationship with Britain and the Intolerable Acts.