Committee of safety (American Revolution)

In the American Revolution, committees of correspondence, committees of inspection, also known as committees of observation and committees of safety, were different local committees of Patriots that became a shadow government; they took control of the Thirteen Colonies away from royal officials, who became increasingly helpless.^[1]

In the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as affairs drew toward a crisis, it became usual for towns to appoint three committees: of correspondence, of inspection, and of safety.^[2] The first was to keep the community informed of dangers either legislative or executive, and concert measures of public good; the second to watch for violations of non-importation agreements^[clarify], or attempts of loyalists to evade them; the third to act as general executive while the legal authority was in abeyance. In February 1776 these were regularly legalized by the Massachusetts General Court but consolidated into one called the "Committee of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety" to be elected annually by the towns.