Sons & Daughters of Liberty 

     To understand who the Sons of Liberty were and how they formed, you must first understand what events led up to their formation. The year 1763 saw the end of the Seven Years’ War, or the French and Indian War; Great Britain came out the victor although deeply in debt. As a way to recover their debts, Parliament decided the American colonies should help replenish their coffers. So began a series of taxes.  It starts in 1764 with the Sugar Act, a tax to replace the poorly enforced Molasses Act of 1733 which originally placed a tax of six pence per gallon on sugar and molasses imported to the colonies. They lowered this tax to three pence, enforced and expanded it to include taxes on wines, coffee, and textile products as well. Britain also came up with the Currency Act, which prohibited the colonies from creating their own paper money. These two acts quickly caused economic problems for the colonists. The final straw for some of the colonists came with the proclamation of the Stamp Act, passed by Parliament on March 22, 1765 and set to go into effect on November 1, 1765. This placed a new tax on every piece of printed paper used. This included newspapers, licenses, legal documents, nearly every distributed publication, they even taxed playing cards. Furthermore, not only did this tax pass in Parliament, it did so without consulting the colonial legislatures. This infuriated the colonists who felt that they were not being represented. Some took up the motto, “taxation without representation,” and formed secret groups of local artisans, shopkeepers, and merchants. One such group was called The Loyal Nine.

 

     The Loyal Nine formed in Boston during the early summer of 1765. This secretive group included Benjamin Edes, a printer; Henry Bass, a cousin of Samuel Adams; Thomas Crafts, a painter; Steven Cleverly, a brazier; John Smith, a brazier; Joseph Field, a ship captain; George Trott, a jeweler; Thomas Chase, a distiller; and the club secretary, John Avery, also a distiller. These were ordinary men, not men of wealth or in positions of leadership and/or authority. This group established the “Liberty Tree” which served as a central location for speeches and organizing demonstrations and protests. The Loyal Nine distributed anti-Stamp Act publications, carefully planned and organized street violence, identifying who the target was and regulating how far the violence could be carried out. The Sons of Liberty had started to form at around this same time. Samuel Adams, a member of this group, joined The Loyal Nine and the two groups merged together as The Sons of Liberty. By the end of the year, the Sons of Liberty existed in every colony. These secretive groups left very little information about themselves in terms of a paper trail; they had many rituals and used code words, medals and symbols to identify and communicate with one another.

 

     One of the first acts of the Sons of Liberty was on August 14, 1765, they hung an effigy (a model or sculpture of a person) of Andrew Oliver, who was to be the commissioned Distributor of Stamps, in the Liberty Tree. Along with this was found a large boot with a devil climbing out of it, this was a play on the name of the Earl of Bute and was intended to establish the evil connection between Oliver and the Stamp Act.

 

     Some of the most effective works performed by the Sons of Liberty were in newsprint, as many of the sons were printers and publishers. When the Stamp Act finally went into effect on November 1, 1765, nearly all papers went right on publishing without the required Stamp. With the use of fear, force, and intimidation, they successfully managed to force officers to resign and closed down courts. The group tar and feathered officers and other distributors and/or collectors of the Stamp, provided information, directed, and organized events to further their cause. The main objective of the sons was to repeal the Stamp Act. In 1766, their mission succeeded and the Stamp Act was repealed.

 

     The Sons of Liberty had learned how to effectively organize themselves and communicate to one another throughout the colonies. They had significantly grown in numbers and reached out to other merchants, farmers, artisans, etc. to create even greater alliances. They continued in their efforts to create liberty for the colonists. On December 16, 1773, The Boston Tea Party took place, which was ultimately the catalyst for the Revolution.