“The Sparck of Rebellion”

(American Heritage) On the evening of December 16, 1773, in Boston, several score Americans, some badly disguised as Mohawk Indians, their faces smudged with blacksmith’s coal dust, ran down to Griffin’s Wharf, where they boarded three British vessels. Within three hours, the men—members of the Sons of Liberty, an intercolonial association bent on resisting British law—had cracked open more than 300 crates of English tea with hatchets and clubs, then poured the contents into Boston Harbor.
News of the “Boston Tea Party” quickly spread throughout the colonies, and other seaports soon staged their own tea parties. Continued

Image: Library of Congress