on December 16, 1773, when a patriotic band, masquerading as Mohawk Indians, heaved 342 chests of tea into Massachusetts Bay. Such was the instinctive respect for private property in the colonies that even Boston firebrand Samuel Adams boasted that the tea party had occurred “without the least injury to the vessels or any other property.”2 The tea tax wasn’t as punitive as is commonly supposed—the cost of tea to the colonists actually declined—but it threatened local merchants by eliminating smugglers and colonial middlemen, entrenching the East India Company’s monopoly. It also perpetuated
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