Discontent was growing among the colonists and Britain seemed to only fuel the fire by passing even more acts, such as the Stamp Act in 1765, which was a tax paid for every piece of printed paper used by the colonists; the Townshend Act in 1767, which basically gave governors, judges and colonial officials a steady income so they could become independent of the colonies, was met by the resistance of the colonists, the smuggling and boycotting of the merchants, who stopped importing English goods, and the presence of an unprecedented number of British soldiers at the ports, specially Boston's, which lead to the Boston Massacre. .
The Boston Massacre, also known as The Bloody Massacre, occurred on March 5th 1770 where Boston's people showed their discontent about the British controlling ways by rioting. A group of about sixty people gathered together and took out their anger by throwing rocks and snowballs at the soldiers stationed in front of the Customs House. Fearing for their lives some of the British soldiers fired without the permission of their captain, Thomas Preston, killing five men and leaving six injured. Afterwards a trial was held but the British, represented by John Adams and Josiah Quincy III, were acquitted. The only good things that came out of this ordeal was the fact that the Royal Governor demanded the evacuation of the British troops and the Townshend Act was reduced to just the tax on tea, which proved to be a great mistake by part of the Parliament.
After a period of relative calm, on May 10th 1773, Parliament passed yet another act, the Tea Act, which had the purposed of helping the East India Company get out of bankruptcy by having them sell their tea at a very low price and at the same time make the Americans colonists happy. However, the Americans saw right through this and wouldn't let the Dockers unload the cargo out of the ships. On December 16th, the same year, some townsmen radicals boarded the ships and threw hundreds of boxes of tea to sea.