Intolerable Acts, or Coercive Acts... the two parties called it two different names. The British (or the loyalists) put these acts upon the Colonists (or the patriots) to punish them for the acts of dumping the tea into the water, which was a large trading resource at the time. To give you a bit more history, they dressed up as Indians in the process of dumping to tea... Later on after they were going to be punished... the Patriots spread propaganda about what happened...( kind of the same thing with the Massacre, only 5 people were killed. But the colonists made it seem like it was a mass killing).