USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -With the passing of the Tea Act, the seventeen million pounds of unsold surplus tea the British East India Company owned could be sold to markets in the American colonies. The tea was to be shipped to the American colonies and sold at a reduced rate.

Detailed explanation-2: -For years, Americans refused to buy British tea because it included a tax levied on tea drinkers, a thought that repulsed colonists who didn’t believe they should be taxed without a representative sitting in the British parliament to voice their concerns. Instead, Americans bought tea smuggled into the colonies.

Detailed explanation-3: -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-4: -The powerful East India Company, finding itself in critical financial straits, appealed to the British government, which granted it a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies. The government also permitted the East India Company to supply retailers directly, bypassing colonial wholesalers.