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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Conclusion: The Consequences of the British Parliamentary Acts

  • The crisis of the Stamp Act allowed colonists to loudly proclaim their identity as defenders of British liberty.
  • With the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, liberty-loving subjects of the king celebrated what they viewed as a victory.
  • The experience of resisting the Townshend Acts provided another shared experience among colonists from diverse regions and backgrounds, while its later partial repeal convinced many that liberty had once again been defended.
  • The colonial rejection of the Tea Act culminated in an act of resistance known as the Boston Tea Party, in which a group of colonists from the Sons of Liberty threw $1 million (in today's dollars) worth of British tea into the Boston Harbor that was meant to be sold in the colonies.
  • This act recast the decade-long argument between British colonists and the home government as an intolerable conspiracy against liberty and an excessive overreach of parliamentary power.

• The Status of Women

  • The American Revolution left the status of most American women largely unaltered.
  • The ideals of liberty, equality, and independence espoused by the founding fathers did little to better women's lives in particular.
  • Whig political theorists argued that men's independence, based on land ownership, freed them to vote, and because women were dependent on their husbands, sons, and fathers, they were unable to behave independently in the political and economic realms.
  • The independence of men was based on land ownership.
  • Describe how the ideal of "Republican Motherhood" restricted women from the public arena during the American Revolution

• The Language of Liberty

  • The American "language of liberty" refers to individuals' right to life, liberty and property, and the duty to participate in civic affairs.
  • The American language of liberty is a concept deeply rooted in the Anglo-American colonial experience as well as the American Revolution.
  • Broadly, the "language of liberty" includes widespread political participation and the duty of the citizen to safeguard against arbitrary despotism; the right of citizens to life and liberty, and the Bill of Rights' protections from politically corrupted governance.
  • The language of liberty, significantly, did not apply to slaves, who were deemed as chattel property.
  • In the aftermath of the American Revolution and the establishment of the United States republic, many contemporaries lauded the Bill of Rights and the Constitution as the legacies of Enlightenment and liberal British principles that would safeguard the rights and liberties of American men.