Chapter 1: What led to the Boston Tea Party?
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Welcome back to Write Answers Mostly, a podcast on what you didn't learn in history class, but you really wanted to. I'm your host, Claire Donald. I'm your other host, Tess Palomo. Welcome to 2026, Rami's. We are back. We have missed you. We have been thinking about you every day. Every day.
And we do have a new premium episode out too, which I know some of y'all were missing us and wanted to get into that. So join our premium channel if you just can't get enough of us. And we're going to catch up about what we've been doing, winter break, our travels, our...
I'm like, everything. Personal details.
Personal details, yeah. I haven't floated this by you, but I think I'm going to get high for this week's premium episode. I mean, love. It's just been so long. What if I was like, can we talk offline?
Hey, can we cut real quick?
Yeah, I'm like, let's take this back. That sounds gorgeous. Well, actually, okay. Well, I guess we are going to a boozy dinner after that, but that's going to be fun.
That could be fun. We are taking our merch king, my brother Adrian, out as a thank you for all that he does for merch.
We do this, like, twice a year? Well, last time that we went to our celebratory dinner, I did fall out of the way, though, so...
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Chapter 2: How did the East India Company influence colonial sentiments?
Yeah, we got a little excited. There's this one place that we go that I think is cursed.
It has to be cursed. It's not us. It has to be us drinking three martinis. No, but this time we're going to a different restaurant, so maybe we will be better behaved. So tune into Premium where we will talk about our night with Adrienne.
Pray for us. Pray for us. But we are so excited to be back, y'all. I know that we have new rammies here, which we are so excited about. There's so much history to gossip about. And I know that the Rammys have been asking for more of like events in history because we cover so many people, which is like honestly kind of hard to find.
It's like it's more intimidating like an event because it just doesn't give you like that set structure. Exactly. So I was excited when I heard. I mean, you didn't tell me. I saw it on Instagram like the rest of the Rammys. Really? I'm so sorry. No, it's totally fine. But I was just excited as everyone else. I was like, have fun.
Yeah, y'all, we're covering the Boston Tea Party today. I was called to it. We will be doing Chernobyl eventually, but that felt a little overwhelming, and I do want to watch the HBO show, but I'm in heated rivalry right now. Kunal and I watched last night. We just finished episode two.
Okay, we're going to get into Boston Tea Party, but first I just got to say I've never seen an ass like that in my life. Shocking.
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Chapter 3: What role did the Stamp Act play in escalating tensions?
Just like it. Like a true, it's like a peach, like, oh my God. So when I have more free space in my head, I will do Chernobyl. But for now, we're going to do Boston Tea Party. I love it. I'm so excited. Let's get into it. Well, Tess, what do you know about the Boston Tea Party?
You know, had to be reminded yesterday by Kunal a little bit because I was like, what? Exactly. I was like, don't tell me much. But he was like, oh, it's one like the, you know, he gave me like a little quick. The tea was taxed. People were pissed. Exactly. They clocked that tea, sis. They clocked that tea, sis. And that's, I know that it started like a war or the beginning of a war.
You're exactly right, Tess. The war?
No.
No. The Revolutionary War. When was that? 1700s. Okay, just kidding. We're going to get into it all right now. We're going to learn about it. So if you're on the same page as Tess, let's clock that thesis together. Drink every time.
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Chapter 4: How did the Boston Tea Party unfold on December 16, 1773?
It's just like hard. How do you not say clock that thesis?
I just think you have to accept that we will be saying that this episode and it's okay.
And spill the tea and pipe and hot tea. All the tings. Oh, we're going to have fun with episode titles for this one, aren't we? Yeah. Oh my God, you guys. A little backstory. When we were brainstorming, this is humiliating, names for our show. So the idea of historic tea was floated around.
So, yeah, there were some tough ones in there. I remember our list being like, wait, this could be so chic. And now, no, sometimes you really have to cross those things out.
Yeah, exactly. Well, it's all part of the process. But OK, you guys, let's get into it. So tests on December 16th, 1773. The Boston Tea Party. This was the true kicking off point to the American Revolution when the Sons of Liberty dumped tea into the harbor because the colonists clocked that thesis and said no taxation without representation.
And less than two years later, fighting broke out in Massachusetts, officially starting the Revolutionary War. God, it all happens in Massachusetts, doesn't it? It does. I also wrote that after two glasses of wine last night. I'm obsessed with it. Thank you. Okay, Tess, so let's set the scene of where we are in the world, what things are looking like. So what did America look like at this time?
What we now think of the United States were made up of 13 colonies of the British Empire. Do you know the 13 colonies?
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Chapter 5: What were the immediate consequences of the Boston Tea Party?
Don't ask me those questions right now. The first episode back? How dare you? I mean, I wouldn't either. I mean, obviously we know Massachusetts because we're in Boston. Like states. Well, they were colonies at the time. They weren't states because we weren't the United States. So they were colonies of the British Empire. But yes. So I bet you can get one. New York. You got it, sis. Okay.
I'm a genius. Okay. So we have New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It's all the East Coast girlies. Exactly. It is along the Atlantic coast.
And they weren't quite a cohesive united group yet, like we were saying, but they were a rich source of revenue for British trade with all the ports. And each colony was ultimately under the British rule, meaning the King of Britain, which was King George at the time, and Parliament had final say over what was going down in these colonies. England has done so much, haven't they?
Also, British Ramy is like, what's kind of beef in this episode? You know what I mean?
You guys know that we love you and we love your voice notes that you send us, but, you know, let's make it a little spicy.
Yeah, exactly. Let's get a little competitive. I'm also wearing a red, white, and blue shirt in honor. You know, sometimes it's, like, funny to cosplay as a person who's proud of their country, you know?
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Chapter 6: How did the Boston Massacre relate to the Tea Party?
Sure, sure. Well, sometimes you have to. Yeah. Exactly. So it's intended to be like a reciprocal deal with like parliament ruling over these colonies because it's like we will protect you with our military troops and officials. You just got to do whatever we say. So the big decisions about what's going down in a colony like Massachusetts, those decisions weren't being made in Massachusetts.
They were going to be made in London. Right. Now, the total population of the colonies around this time was 2.5 million people, including 500,000 enslaved people, which is more than I thought. A bigger population? Yeah, I don't know. For some reason in my head, I'm picturing this time there's like about 20 people per town.
That's what I would say too, but clearly I don't know anything about what's going on right now as we have... We're learning together. That's the whole point. We are. So most people live in small town or rural areas with only a few cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia being moderately large. Now, okay, the 1760s, Britain kind of has a big problem.
And the irony of it is that their big problem was born from their success, right? which was winning the Seven Years' War. That war. Okay. That war. So many wars, so little time. Now, in North America, we know it as the French and Indian War, and it is where the Brits and their American colonial allies gained a lot of French territory in North America.
Like, I mean, England and French is so, girl, so confusing. God, it really—oh, my God, it really is. So Britain now has a huge empire because they have, like, totally taken all of the French territory in North America, but— But, oh, no, sis, you are in major debt because wars are very expensive. Why do we do it, you know?
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Chapter 7: What was the British response to the Boston Tea Party?
Power. It's men, like, wanting more power.
When I was younger and I was, like, peace and love, I always used to be, like, should it, like, I was, like, can't we just, like, have countries play, like, a card game and whoever wins the card game wins the land?
pretty sure we haven't said something like so dissimilar on this podcast before being like can we just talk it out like but but literally though not quite that simple I guess or maybe it was but it's like someone buying a massive house but you can't pay the mortgage now that's like the situation that Britain was in wow so they were like okay we're major we're huge but we got to figure out how to run this empire and we got to figure out how to pay off this debt that got us here in the first place so that's where Britain is as a country
Now let's talk about this thing called the East India Company. So the East India Company began as a British business founded in 1600 that traded goods like tea, silk, and spices between Asia and Europe. Okay. So it accounts for half of the world's trade in cotton, silk, dye, sugar, spices, opium, and tea. Well, you got to find it where you can, right?
You really do, especially back in those days. Yeah, I guess you can't just get high on weed. It's just like high on opium, or could you?
I feel like they were, I mean, I think that they took opium for things that we would be shook about now. Like medically too, right? Yeah, like definitely medically. But I'm sure that they're, you know, a little bit recreational. Yeah, we've always pushed it. So they're like a major company that they're accounting for half the world's trade on all of those items.
And it just becomes a super powerhouse company. It dominated markets and it had a close relationship with the government. So they just become this like major monopoly trading. It's like Kind of like the Amazon of our day, like Jeff Bezos vibes. That's reminding me of Silk Road. Silk Road. Check out our Silk Road episode. Also opium. All of the spices and teas and things. They have it over there.
Exactly.
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Chapter 8: How did the Boston Tea Party impact the American Revolution?
And so this East India Company is like, well, that all is ours. And the East India Company was responsible for about 10% of the British government's revenue. So the British government is like, well, we definitely want to because they would like tax them or whatever and all the trades. So they're kind of like corrupt besties together.
There's so much confusing relationship dynamics between these girlies.
Yeah. And like governments and businesses that like should be separate and not being so beneficial to each other. Right. But by the 1700s, the East India Company was a bit of a mess. It was kind of like a major startup that just got out of control and wasn't being ran correctly. Right. There's obviously a huge market for everything that they're selling.
Like everyone needs all of these items, but there's also a huge smuggling market. So people are losing or so they're losing money bad from the smugglers as well.
Okay.
Now, Boston, Massachusetts is the hub of the new colonies for shipping like New York and other colonies would do more like agricultural stuff. But Boston, like their bread and butter is shipping. So if there's taxes on things that are being imported, they're going to get hit the hardest. Again, Britain has a huge North American empire, which requires a lot of money to run it.
The East India Company is also needing cash. So in 1765, they get together and they're like, I know what we can do to both get some money. Let's just tax everyone and win our money back. Always a solution, right? Always a solution. People are always going to be so chill about that. Like, no problem. So they come up with this thing called the Stamp Act.
And the Stamp Act was a law passed by the British Parliament in 1765. And it required that all colonists pay a tax on almost all printed materials. So newspapers, legal documents, license, even like playing cards. Like if it was paper, you're going to have to pay a super high tax on it.
And it was named the Stamp Act because it required that all printed materials be printed on like official stamped paper from London. Adrienne would have loved this. Adrienne would have thrived in this environment. Colonists were pissed about it because they were like, well, we could just, like, make our own playing cards. Like, why do we have to buy these, like, printed playing cards from you?
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