USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -In protest, the colonists boycotted tea sold by British East India Company and smuggled in Dutch tea, leaving British East India Company with millions of pounds of surplus tea and facing bankruptcy.

Detailed explanation-2: -The tea sent to the colonies was to be carried only in East India Company ships and sold only through its own agents, bypassing the independent colonial shippers and merchants. The company thus could sell the tea at a less-than-usual price in either America or Britain; it could undersell anyone else.

Detailed explanation-3: -American colonists were outraged over the tea tax. They believed the Tea Act was a tactic to gain colonial support for the tax already enforced. The direct sale of tea by agents of the British East India Company to the American colonies undercut the business of colonial merchants.

Detailed explanation-4: -The animosity had been brewing among the American colonists for months. On October 16, 1773, a group of Philadelphia patriots decided to tell the British Crown that it would mount a boycott of tea, months before a similar act in Boston.

Detailed explanation-5: -[1] Artisans and planters were in support of the boycotts, but the merchants were indifferent. A merchant named Christopher Gadsden was the leader of the movement to boycott. Gadsden was a native of South Carolina who conducted many businesses, including trade as an importer and merchant.