On a cold winter evening in 1773, dozens of mechanics and artisans carrying axes and clubs made their way to Griffin’s Wharf in colonial Boston. They called themselves the “Sons of Liberty.” Within a few hours, they had thrown 90,000 pounds of cargo from three ships into Boston Harbor. That cargo was British tea. The Boston Tea Party, as it is now known, is commonly recalled as evidence of Americans’ deep-seated and reflexive opposition to heavy taxation. But there is a problem with that familiar narrative: it is untrue. The British government wanted to lower, not raise, duties on tea to prop up the revenues of the East India Company—a corporation integral to the British colonial project—after the collapse of a European banking bubble left the company nearly insolvent. Parliament, as part of a bailout deal, was offering the company a new corporate tax break. Those in the American colonies were not in favor.…