The Boston Tea Party occurred as a protest against which policy?

• A. The Sugar Act
• B. The Stamp Act
• C. The Townshend Acts
• D. The Tea Tax

Answer: (D)

The event centers on a policy that imposed a tax specifically on tea and granted a monopoly to the East India Company to sell that tea in the colonies. The Tea Act of 1773 kept a tax on tea and used a favorable arrangement for the company to undercut colonial merchants, which colonists saw as Parliament imposing taxation without their consent and interfering with local commerce. The Boston Tea Party was a dramatic response to that tea tax policy, symbolizing colonial resistance to taxation imposed from Britain. Earlier taxes like those on sugar or printed materials prompted protests too, but the immediate spark for this act of defiance was the tea tax tied to the Tea Act.