In the 1760s and early 1770s, the British government wanted to raise money by taxing the residents of its colonies in North America. They taxed goods such as sugar and tea and even placed a tax on the printing of documents. These actions angered the colonists, who thought that taxation was unfair since they had no representation in the British government. For this reason, a group of colonists dumped hundreds of chests of tea from Britain into Boston Harbor in 1773, in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. As a result, England passed a series of harsh new laws to punish the colonists, further angering them. The Continental Congress met to voice the colonists' grievances, and eventually, on July 4, 1776, the colonists declared their independence from Britain.