U.S. & World History – On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into the harbor. The “Boston Tea Party” was a direct action by angry protestors under British rule in Massachusetts, against the British government. Newly discovered historical documents, show that the biggest concern of the colonists, was that the price of tea would sky rocket after a wealthy entrepreneur bought most of it, named John Starbucks.