and this book that named what thomas jefferson and all his writings and speeches always referred to as the incident in boston harbor into something called the boston tea party he was literally coined the phrase and here's why he dressed up like an indian and showed up for the tea party. the east india company was trying to corner the tea market after all it was the drink of choice of the colonists and there's pretty much a tea shop on every corner in america we imported millions of pounds of tea every year and most of it was brought in by small american entrepreneurs what the british called smuggler's and the east india company wanted to put those smugglers out of business and their strategy undercut their prices they wanted to pull a wal-mart but the colonists were having none of it as hughes wrote trying to get around the east india company quote render the smuggling of tea an object that was frequently practiced and the resolutions against using it the