Sons of Liberty

Examples of Sons of Liberty in the following topics:

• The Sons of Liberty and the Committees of Correspondence

  • Political groups such as the Sons of Liberty evolved and were organized by the Patriot leaders during the American Revolution.
  • Following the Stamp Act, groups identifying themselves as Sons of Liberty existed in almost every colony.
  • The leaders of the Sons of Liberty heralded mostly from the middle class -- artisans, traders, lawyers, and local politicians.
  • The Sons of Liberty knew they needed to appeal to the masses that made up the lower classes.
  • In return, the British authorities attempted to denigrate the Sons of Liberty by referring to them as the "Sons of Violence" or the "Sons of Iniquity. "

• Swelling Protest

  • The passage of the Stamp Act in the colonies was followed by a marked rise of organized protest movements and groups, including the Sons of Liberty.
  • The Sons of Liberty knew they also needed to appeal to the masses that made up the lower classes.
  • Several Sons of Liberty members were printers and publishers who distributed articles about the meetings and demonstrations the Sons of Liberty held, as well as its fundamental political beliefs and what it wanted to accomplish.
  • In return, the British authorities attempted to denigrate the Sons of Liberty by referring to them as the "Sons of Violence" or the "Sons of Iniquity."
  • The Sons of Liberty flag had five vertical red stripes interspersed by four white stripes.

• The Boston Tea Party

  • In response to the British Tea Act of 1773, the Sons of Liberty took action in what would later be known as the Boston Tea Party.
  • Upon hearing word of the details in the British Tea Act of 1773, the Sons of Liberty took action after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain.
  • Activists calling themselves the Sons of Liberty began a campaign to raise awareness and to convince or compel the consignees to resign, in the same way that stamp distributors had been forced to resign in the 1765 Stamp Act crisis.
  • He convinced the tea consignees, two of whom were his sons, not to back down.
  • When the tea ship, Dartmouth, arrived in Boston Harbor in late November, Sons of Liberty leader Samuel Adams called for a mass meeting.

• The Patriots

  • These Patriots rejected the lack of representation of colonists in the British Parliament and the imposition of British taxes.
  • These men were architects of the early Republic and are counted among the Founding Fathers and architects of the Constitution of the United States.
  • Prior to 1775, many of these Patriots were active in the Sons of Liberty, an organization formed to protect the rights of the colonists from usurpation by the British government.
  • Nonetheless, people of all socioeconomic statuses populated both sides of the conflict.
  • The Sons of Liberty were the earliest Patriots and incited the Boston Tea Party.

• Taxation Without Representation

  • "No taxation without representation," a slogan originating during the 1750s and 1760s that summarized a primary grievance of the British Colonists in the 13 colonies, was one of the major causes of the American Revolution .
  • In short, many of these colonists believed that as they were not directly represented in the British Parliament, any laws it passed taxing the colonists (such as the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act) were illegal under the English Bill of Rights of 1689, and were a denial of their rights as Englishmen.
  • However, during the time of the American Revolution, only 1 in 20 British citizens had representation in parliament, none of whom were part of the colonies.
  • This tax, which was only applied to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value.
  • Here, Sons of Liberty are tarring and feathering a tax collector.

• The Townshend Acts

  • The Daughters of Liberty would later have a large influence during the war.
  • Many Bostonians, led by the Sons of Liberty, mounted a campaign of harassment against British troops.
  • The Sons of Liberty also helped protect the smuggling actions of the merchants; smuggling was crucial for the colonists’ ability to maintain their boycott of British goods.
  • While he maintained too high a profile to work actively with the Sons of Liberty, he was known to support their aims, if not their means of achieving them.
  • Led by the Sons of Liberty, Bostonians rioted against customs officials, attacking the customs house and chasing out the officers, who ran to safety at Castle William, a British fort on a Boston harbor island.

• British Taxes and Colonial Grievances

  • In 1764, George Grenville became the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  • The Sugar Act of 1764 reduced the taxes imposed by the Molasses Act, but at the same time strengthened the collection of the tax.
  • Following the Quartering Act, Parliament passed one of the most infamous pieces of legislation: the Stamp Act.
  • In Boston, the Sons of Liberty, a group led by radical statesman Samuel Adams, destroyed the home of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson.
  • The Boston Tea Party was orchestrated by the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, who fiercely protested the British-imposed taxes.

• Nonconsumption and the Daughters of Liberty

  • The Daughters of Liberty and the nonconsumption agreements were two colonial movements created in response to British taxation.
  • The Daughters of Liberty were a Colonial American group, established around 1769, consisting of women who displayed their loyalty by participating in boycotts of British goods following the passing of the Townshend Acts.
  • Proving their commitment to "the cause of liberty and industry" they openly opposed the Tea Act.
  • The Daughters of Liberty also had a large influence during the war, although not as large an influence as the Sons of Liberty.
  • Martha Washington, George Washington's wife, was a prominent leader of the Daughters of Liberty.

• Tax Protests

  • A series of taxing legislation during the colonial era set off a series of actions between colonists and Great Britain.
  • The first wave of protests attacked the Stamp Act of 1765, and marked the first time Americans from each of the thirteen colonies met together and planned a common front against illegal taxes.
  • This also began the rise of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, who staged public protests over the taxes.
  • The British responded by trying to crush traditional liberties in Massachusetts, leading to the American revolution starting in 1775.
  • During the Boston Tea Party of 1773, Americans dumped British tea into Boston Harbor in protest of a hidden tax.

• Liberty

  • Liberty, the ability of individuals to have control over their lives, is a central aspect of modern political philosophy.
  • Liberty is the ability of individuals to have agency, or control over their own lives.
  • There are different conceptions of liberty, which articulate the relationship of individuals to society in varying ways, including some which relate to life under a "social contract" or to existence in a "state of nature," and some which see the active exercise of freedom and rights as essential to liberty.
  • On Liberty was the first work to recognize the difference between liberty as the freedom to act and liberty as the absence of coercion.In his book, Two Concepts of Liberty, the British social and political theorist Isaiah Berlin formally framed the differences between these two perspectives as the distinction between two opposite concepts of liberty: positive liberty and negative liberty.
  • The concept of liberty has long been a central aspect of the political self-definition in the United States.