British tea party!!! YAY!!!

                Today in Western Civilization we continued our PowerPoint that is now leading into the American Revolution. The first slide presented straight facts in the Boston ‘Massacre’. After this the British repealed most of the Townsend Acts, but not the tea tax. The colonists were not happy about this and smuggled tea in from other sources. British figured this out and tried to put the colony’s tea smugglers out of business by instating another law that said only the British could supply tea. Colonists boycotted British tea and kept smuggling in tea, and in December 1773, the event known as the Boston Tea Party happened. This event coincidentally was also misnamed, and sadly there was no tea party (it would make an interesting history lesson though). Led by Samuel Adams some colonists dressed up as Native Americans and dumped a large amount of tea chests into the harbor. The person delivering wasn’t mad as he wasn’t selling the tea and only delivering it, but this was an extremely rebellious act against Britain. After this Britain responded by instating more laws that restricted colonists, by banning public meetings, closing the Boston Harbor, and sending even more soldiers to Boston. Colonists called these laws the Intolerable Acts. Once again, totally ignoring Britain, the colonists formed the First Continental Congress. Among others, this Congress contained George Washington, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Jay (?). This Congress created a precursor to the Declaration of Independence known as the Declaration of Rights, that stated rights that colonists should have. If these rights were not addressed, accepted by Britain, and the Intolerable Acts were not lifted, then all colonies would stop exporting goods. All the colonies agreed at the time except for Georgia who was fighting a Native American uprising and needed the help. After that we started the American Revolution, and started with a couple war-based vocabulary words (for some odd reason when you said blockades I though Star Wars prequels, but anyways…). Patrick Henry made his famous “Give me liberty or give me death!” quote and others started riling up colonists for war. Massachusetts started its own militia of Minutemen, and Paul Revere and unsung others prepared for their ride as British got ready to storm Concord where colonist munitions were being stored.