The Revolutionary War was preceded by growing tensions between the British and American colonists due to unfair taxes imposed by the British in 1764 and 1765. Tensions further increased when the Townsend Act was passed in 1767, removing rights from American colonists. Violence erupted in the Boston Massacre of 1770 and culminated in the Boston Tea Party of 1773, where American protesters dressed as Native Americans destroyed British tea to protest new tax policies.