The Sons of Liberty

During the time of the thirteen colonies, Parliament implemented acts that the colonists saw as being absurd. There were many acts, but when things really started to become unacceptable was about the time of the Molasses Act, it taxed people for sugar that came from areas outside of their country. This act was not enforced very much at all as people began to smuggle and bribe to get by without paying the tax, so after parliament saw that the Molasses Act was failing, they instituted the Sugar Act, this act was much the same as the Molasses Act, except that the tax was only half of what it had been before, this helped a little, because more people did pay attention and payed the tax. Soon after the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act of 1765 was made and it stated that all newspapers, legal documents, and pamphlets were to be written or printed on watermarked paper which could then be taxed, this enraged the lawyers and press members, people who likely used the most paper and also just happened to be the most powerful and influential people as far as swaying the crowd. After the Stamp Act, two groups started to oppose the acts of parliament, the first group was called the Virginian Assembly. The legislator would not comply with the conditions of the Stamp Act either, and before long both the legislator and the anti tax groups were joined by men from other colonies. The Stamp Act unconstitutional was declared by nine separate colonies who had gathered to make their statement. Along with the Stamp Act, several other acts were seriously debated among even parliament, all of this resulted in a new act. The 1766 Declaratory Act which canceled the Stamp Act within a year of its institution, even though the Stamp Act was defeated, the colonists had in a way traded one problem for another, as a clause in the Declaration Act stated that the same influence parliament had on Britain it would now have on America, and it also said that laws could be passed by parliament that were binding on the colonies in America. So a new group of taxation laws were made on tea, paper, glass, lead, and paint. The way these taxes were arranged by Britain was so that the colonies might become more loyal to them, as the revenue from taxes supposedly went to pay for the officials and judges in the colonies, thus possibly making the colonist more trusting and loyal towards the country of Britain. However the colonists became frustrated by the taxes more than before, so much so that they gathered together underground leagues of men to carry out the revolt, one of the most prominent groups was called the Sons of Liberty. These groups fought against the tax laws in many different ways, they spoke openly against them, they printed their ideas, and eventually even used violence to get their ideas across. In 1765, the Sons of Liberty were non-existent, it was only a small circle of artisans and shopkeepers who were known as the Loyal Nine, they began in Boston to protest the Stamp Act, and it was only when the group got to a certain size that they earned the name, the Sons of Liberty. The first action that the group carried out was the effigy of Andrew Oliver. Andrew distributed stamps in Massachusetts, but on August 14, 1765, “the Sons” made a display of him hanging in a tree with a boot with a devil crawling out of it. The entire set up was to show a connection between Oliver and the Stamp Act and evil presence. Another event that occurred around this time was the Boston Massacre, it began in 1770, when some colonists were tormenting a group of British soldiers, one of the soldiers was taken down by a snowball thrown by one of the colonist, and the soldiers were so angry that they fired their guns right into the open crowd, it turned out that five innocent people were killed. This isn’t exactly what you would call a massacre, but since it was talked about so much, over time it became exaggerated. At this point the revolts, protests, and violence was quickly turning into a war, between Britain and the colonies. In 1770, an act called the Townshend Revenue Act was repealed, this was a good thing, but in 1772, a ship filled with goods to be taxed called the Gaspee was beached on the shore of Rhode Island, the colonists became enraged and burned the entire ship right then and there, to protest all the taxes that had been incorporated alluring lives. This did not seem to work, because after that parliament had the audacity to make a Tea Act. Tea was now going to be taxed heavily, which would be a problem since tea was used daily by the colonies. Things did not look good, but instead of fighting the tea act as they had others, they just stopped drinking tea, and they would not let it be shipped to their colonies, because if it was shipped there, they would have to pay the tax anyway. One of the most memorable and bold things that the Sons of Liberty ever did is what is known as the Boston Tea party of 1773, it started when a tea filled ship was coming into the Boston harbor, the Sons dressed as Indians raided the ship and dumped all the tea into the water and escaped. This made Parliament so angry that they made a punishment for the colony of Massachusetts. The other colonies acknowledged that if they were not careful they could end up in the same kind of trouble, as the Intolerable Acts were a series of laws that stole the rights and liberties of the colonists, therefore the colonies decided that they all had to fight against this together. In 1774, 12 colonies sent delegates, altogether there were 55 of them, who formed a representative body that met about abandoning the British supplies and giving George III a redress of grievances. They had already decided that if their grievances weren’t redressed, they would call a second Continental Congress to gather the next year. They tried to stop using the British goods to avoid paying the tax, this did not please the British, and as it turned out George did not redress their list of grievances, which in turn did not please the colonists, so the following year the Continental Congress met and decided to go to further measures to permanently get rid of the acts and taxes that Britain had made. This eventually led to the American Revolution and the independence of the colonies from England and Parliament.

Information gathered from the Ron Paul curriculum 8^th grade history class.