Sons of Liberty

Sons of Liberty
LeadersSee below
Foundation1765
Dissolved1776
MotivesBefore 1766:
Opposition to the Stamp Act
After 1766:
Independence of the United Colonies from Great Britain
Active regionsMassachusetts Bay
Rhode Island
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
Maryland
Virginia
IdeologyInitial phase:
Rights of Englishmen
"No taxation without representation"
Later phase:
Liberalism
Republicanism
Major actionsPublic demonstrations, direct action, destruction of Crown goods and property, boycotts, tar and feathering, pamphleteering
Notable attacksGaspee Affair, Boston Tea Party, attack on John Malcolm
Allies Patriot revolutionaries
Opponents Parliament of Great Britain
Royal Colonial Governments
Tories and other Crown Loyalists
A 1765 handbill, announcing an upcoming "Sons of Liberty" public event.

The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It played a major role in most colonies in battling the Stamp Act in 1765[1] and throughout the entire period of the American Revolution. Historian David C. Rapoport called the activities of the Sons of Liberty "mob terror."[2]

In popular thought, the Sons of Liberty was a formal underground organization with recognized members and leaders. More likely, the name was an underground term for any men resisting new Crown taxes and laws.[3] The well-known label allowed organizers to make or create anonymous summons to a Liberty Tree, "Liberty Pole", or other public meeting-place. Furthermore, a unifying name helped to promote inter-Colonial efforts against Parliament and the Crown's actions. Their motto became "No taxation without representation."[4]

  1. ^ John Phillips Resch, ed., culture, and the homefront (MacMillan Reference Library, 2005) 1: 174–75
  2. ^ Rapoport, David C. (2008). "Before the Bombs There Were the Mobs: American Experiences with Terror". Terrorism and Political Violence. 20 (2): 168. doi:10.1080/09546550701856045. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  3. ^ Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies (2007) 1:688
  4. ^ Frank Lambert (2005). James Habersham: loyalty, politics, and commerce in colonial Georgia. U. of Georgia Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-8203-2539-2.

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