Sons of Liberty

The Sons of Liberty was an organization formed in the American colonies in the summer of 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act.[3] The Sons of Liberty was a secret colonial American organization formed in 1765 to protest and subvert British control of the thirteen American colonies.[6] The Sons of Liberty took their name from a speech given in the British Parliament by Isaac Barré, in which he referred to the colonials who had opposed unjust British measures as the 'sons of liberty.'[3]

Origins and Formation

The origins and founding of the Sons of Liberty is unclear, but history records the earliest known references to the organization to 1765 in the thriving colonial port cities of Boston and New York.[1] The origins of the Sons of Liberty are unclear, but some of the organization's roots can be traced to the Loyal Nine, a secretive Boston political organization whose members included Benjamin Edes and Samuel Adams.[3]

Once the Stamp Act had passed, a secret group called the Loyal Nine, the precursor to the Sons of Liberty, gathered crowds around the famous Liberty Tree in Boston.[2] The initial group was composed of local craftsmen and laborers who called themselves the Loyal Nine.[6] Eventually, the Loyal Nine began signing their political dissent as 'The Sons of Liberty' thus establishing a much larger resistance group.[2]

The Sons of Liberty was most likely organized in the summer of 1765 as a means to protest the passing of the Stamp Act of 1765.[1] The French and Indian War, coupled with the fighting throughout the globe, nearly pushed the British Empire to the brink of financial collapse due to the increased spending needed to fight an international war. As a result, the British increased taxation among the colonies and stationed soldiers of the Crown within these colonies to guard the Empire's new territorial gains.[2]

Name and Inspiration

The name originates from a February 1765 speech by Isaac Barré, a politician of Irish heritage, in the British House of Commons. During a debate on the Stamp Act, Barré, in support of the colonists, advocated for colonial independence, and described Patriots who resisted British overreach as "sons of liberty".[10] He believed colonial Americans had ably confronted their hardships while cherishing "Principles of true english Lyberty." Yet now, in the 1760s, British officials were misrepresenting the colonists and preying upon them: their behavior, he said, "has caused the Blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them."[7]

Organization and Structure

As tensions in the American colonies intensified on the eve of the Revolution, chapters of the Sons of Liberty were formed all over the Thirteen Colonies, notably throughout New England, Virginia, and the Carolinas – a far cry from the two original chapters formed in Boston and New York City in the summer of 1765.[1] By the end of that year the Sons of Liberty existed in every colony.[8]

Gradually, the Sons of Liberty in each colony, beginning with New York and Connecticut, establish communication networks and negotiate "Certain Mutual and Reciprocal Agreements" with other Sons of Liberty and related groups in surrounding towns and colonies.[4] Although attention has generally focused on the role of the Sons in Boston's Stamp Act riots, the attempts of Isaac Sears, John Lamb, and the New York Sons of Liberty to organize intercolonial communication networks were also significant. Beginning in November 1765, the New York Sons sent representatives to chapters in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts proposing alliances and establishing avenues to share information. Although short-lived, the importance of this initial effort by the New York Sons to make connections with colleagues in other colonies would later become clear: it was a first step toward continental unity and the creation of a common cause.[17]

For the most part, the chief organizers were lawyers, merchants, gentlemen, and prominent master craftsmen—many were involved in the colonial legislatures.[7] The underground group was made up of Patriot men living in Boston from all walks of life, including dock workers, soldiers, merchants, tavern owners, and political leaders.[10]

Methods and Activities

The Sons of Liberty were a grassroots group of instigators and provocateurs in colonial America who used an extreme form of civil disobedience—threats, and in some cases actual violence—to intimidate loyalists and outrage the British government.[5] Their most popular objective was to force Stamp Distributors throughout the colonies to resign. The groups also applied pressure to any Merchants who did not comply with the non-importation associations.[8]

Its members did not engage British authorities openly, but rather they used guerilla tactics to damage British finances, spread fear among British officials, and encourage Americans to protest British rule.[6] So, under the direction of the Sons of Liberty, the colonists organized a boycott of all British goods being sold in the colonies. Under Samuel Adams and other members of the Sons of Liberty, the boycott was enforced throughout Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts area.[2]

The Sons of Liberty did their utmost to spread word of their actions throughout the colonies, and to Great Britain. They published pamphlets and newspaper articles, which were circulated and sometimes read aloud in taverns.[7] Printers Benjamin Edes (Boston Gazette), William Goddard (Providence Gazette), Samuel Hall (Newport Mercury), and William Bradford (Pennsylvania Journal) were all members of their local Sons of Liberty; the printers' participation ensured that the Sons' message would reach a wide audience.[17]

Major Actions and Events

Stamp Act Resistance

The Sons of Liberty in Boston first made its existence known in August of 1765, when members organized mass protests against the Stamp Act, which was to take effect that fall. The Sons of Liberty incited the people of Boston to riot against the law and particularly against Andrew Oliver, an American official tasked with enforcing the stamp tax throughout Massachusetts.[6]

On August 14, 1765, the Sons of Liberty organized the hanging of an effigy of Andrew Oliver – the British customs official responsible for administering the Stamp Act in Massachusetts. The effigy was paraded around Boston, riling up the locals, to the point where the British were unable to control the mob.[10]

Boston Tea Party

The seminal act and lasting legacy of the Sons of Liberty to the history of the American Revolution was the December 16, 1773 orchestrating of the Boston Tea Party.[1] The Boston Tea Party became perhaps the Sons of Liberty's most famous anti-British act. Britain's Tea Act of 1773 forced American colonists to buy tea from Britain's East India Company, which sold its tea at low prices and created a monopoly on American colonial tea. In December of 1773, in response to this coercion, the Sons of Liberty in Boston quietly boarded British tea ships in the harbor and dumped hundreds of tea crates overboard.[6]

Their most famous act of disobedience was destroying 92,000 pounds of British tea in Boston Harbor in December 1773.[5] The Boston Tea Party, as the act would become known, was one of the key events that pushed the colonies and the British government toward war.[5]

Notable Members

Notable members of the Sons of Liberty included John Hancock, Paul Revere, James Otis Jr., and Samuel Adams, who is often credited as the organization's founder.[10] Many men associated with the Sons of Liberty, including Samuel Adams, John Adams, Samuel Chase, Christopher Gadsden, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Rush, are Founding Fathers who played key roles in the establishment of the independent United States of America.[9]

What was originally organized in Boston by a local brewer turned politician, Samuel Adams, quickly snowballed into a larger network of resistance to the British Crown.[2] Not only did he become famous for his role in the Boston Tea Party, but also as a leading voice for American Independence. Samuel Adams felt that independence needed to happen at any cost, including mob violence.[16]

Relationship with Continental Congress

In response, colonial protestors led by a group called the Sons of Liberty issued a call for a boycott.[11] The Sons of Liberty played a crucial role in establishing the foundation for colonial resistance that would eventually lead to the Continental Congress. In the 1760s, the Sons of Liberty used committees of correspondence to organize resistance between cities.[15]

The following year Adams was present at the meeting of the First Continental Congress. The meeting discussed a unified response to the Intolerable Acts and created a draft letter of grievances for King George III.[12] After the Revolutionary War, Adams became a delegate from Massachusetts for the Continental Congress and the state's fourth governor.[16]

He joined the Continental Congress in 1774, persuaded it to support the Bostonians, and served in that body until 1782. He signed the Declaration of Independence and participated in the convention called to ratify the new Constitution of the United States.[17] Rush signed his name on the Declaration of Independence and joined the Medical Committee of the Continental Congress.[16]

Several inter-colonial committees of correspondence simultaneously called for a general congress of the North American colonies to address and combat the Coercive Acts. In the three months leading up to what would be the First Continental Congress, Americans formed committees of correspondence at the town, county, and colony levels to choose their delegates.[15]

Evolution and Decline

"At the outset, most Sons of Liberty only wanted something limited—for Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act," Carp explains. "But over time, more and more Sons of Liberty became convinced that independence was the answer." Parliament's passage in December 1773 of the Tea Act, which propped up the financially struggling British East India Company by giving it a virtual monopoly on selling tea to the colonies, pushed the Sons to become even more brazen.[5]

The Stamp Act is ultimately repealed on 1 March 1766, negating the immediate need for an inter-colonial resistance movement. Parliament is not done with the colonies just yet, however, and Sons of Liberty groups remain active in their local communities for years to come.[4]

The rise of government sanctioned committees of correspondence to unify resistance against British policies also undercut the need for the kinds of activities that Sons of Liberty had undertaken in 1765 to 1766. Finally, once the Continental Congress created the Continental Association in October 1774, elected committees of inspection and observation provided the political muscle and engaged in the kind of pressure tactics associat[17]

The Sons of Liberty ended around 1774 when the 13 Original Colonies started to form their own provincial governments.[9]

Legacy and Impact

So it was that the first efforts to unite the colonies were not undertaken by their respective legislatures, but by these independent radical groups.[8] The goal of the radicals was to push moderate colonial leaders into a confrontation with the British Crown.[5]

Their motto was, "No taxation without representation."[1] Throughout its existence, the group's rallying cry was "no taxation without representation," reflecting their demand for civil liberties and self-governance.[6]

The Sons of Liberty had displaced the royal government in nearly every colony.[8] The organization's resistance activities and network-building efforts established precedents for colonial cooperation that would prove essential in the formation of the Continental Congress and the eventual pursuit of American independence.