USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -One of the main causes of the high price of tea in the American colonies was the monopoly held by the East India Company. What was the effect? Colonists bought tea from Dutch smugglers. The East India Company grew less tea.

Detailed explanation-2: -The colonists had never accepted the constitutionality of the duty on tea, and the Tea Act rekindled their opposition to it. Their resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, in which colonists boarded East India Company ships and dumped their loads of tea overboard.

Detailed explanation-3: -Facing trouble in the American colonies, in 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act. It allowed the East India Company to directly ship tea to the colonies without passing England. This way, duties were reduced and resulted in the cheaper price of English tea in the colonies.

Detailed explanation-4: -But the colonists were angry because the Act would give the East India Company a monopoly on tea sales in the colonies. The colonists became angry again about being taxed without representation. They decided to restart the boycott of tea.

Detailed explanation-5: -Besides the tax on tea which had been in place since 1767, what fundamentally angered the American colonists about the Tea Act was the British East India Company’s government sanctioned monopoly on tea.