Great Britain closed the Port of Boston in the 1770s as a punishment for the Boston Tea Party, which took place on December 16, 1773. During this event, a group of colonists disguised as Native Americans boarded British ships and dumped chests of tea into Boston Harbor in protest against the British Tea Act, which they saw as unfair taxation without representation. In response to this act of defiance, the British government passed the Boston Port Act in 1774, which closed the port until the colonists paid for the destroyed tea and reimbursed the British East India Company for its financial losses. This punitive measure was meant to assert British authority and deter future acts of rebellion in the American colonies.
