Not a Party at All

On December 16, 1773, a crowd of disguised men boarded three ships in Boston Harbor — an estimated 100 or more, though the exact number is unknown because most kept their identities secret and only about 116 participants were ever identified by name. They were disguised — badly — as Mohawk Indians, their faces smeared with coal dust and war paint. Over three hours, they systematically destroyed 342 chests of tea by smashing them open and dumping them into the harbor.

The tea destroyed that night was worth roughly $1.7 million in today's money — a private company's property, dumped into the harbor by disguised citizens acting without legal authority. If you called it vandalism today, you would be technically correct. It worked because the colonists controlled the narrative afterward.