Incident on Dec.
16, 1773, in which American patriots dressed as Indians threw 342 chests of tea from three British ships into Boston Harbour. Their leader was Samuel Adams . The action was taken to prevent the payment of a British-imposed tax on tea and to protest the British monopoly of the colonial tea trade authorized by the Tea Act . In retaliation, Parliament passed the punitive Intolerable Acts , which further united the colonies in their opposition to the British.