Page 98 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

98
harbor in the Boston Tea Party. It was a protest against a new tea tax. The British government retaliated by closing the Port of Boston and stripping Massachusetts of its self-government. The other colonies supported behind Massachusetts, and
this resulted in setting up the First Continental Congress, and arming militia units. The British sent more troops to Boston. When the army commander, General Gage discovered the Patriots had set up a shadow government based in the town of Concord, he sent troops to break it up. This was the moment when Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott made their famous midnight rides to alert the Minutemen in the surrounding towns, who fought the resulting Battle of Lexington and Concord in April 1775. It was the first battle of the American Revolution.
From its early days, Boston had been one of the most important cities of New England. That is why it was fiercely fought over in the Revolutionary War,
After the Revolutionary War, Boston resumed trade, and blossomed. It grew on trade of rum, fish, salt, and tobacco. Rum was based on the import of sugar from the Caribbean, refining it into rum and molasses, and exporting it to Europe. This, in turn,