Definition
The Sons of Liberty formed in colonial towns in 1765, taking their name from Isaac Barré, a member of Parliament who had called the colonists "sons of liberty" in a speech against the Stamp Act. In Boston in August 1765, a crowd led by the shoemaker Ebenezer MacIntosh hanged stamp distributor Andrew Oliver in effigy and wrecked his office, and Oliver resigned the next day. Twelve days later another crowd gutted the mansion of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, although he had privately opposed the Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty later enforced nonimportation agreements, and in 1773 Boston's Sons of Liberty issued handbills against the tea ships before the Boston Tea Party.
Why it matters on the AP exam
The Sons of Liberty are the standard example of the political activism of laborers and artisans that energized the movement for independence. Their pressure forced stamp distributors to resign, so the Stamp Act could not be enforced in most colonies by the time it was to take effect. Comparison prompts ask students to set the Sons of Liberty beside the Daughters of Liberty or elite petitions, and to explain how different groups responded to British policy between 1763 and 1783.
Connections
- Stamp Act: their crowds forced stamp distributors to resign in 1765
- Townshend Acts: they helped enforce the boycott of British goods that followed in 1767
- Boston Massacre: Paul Revere, a Son of Liberty, sold an engraving of the shooting within weeks
- Daughters of Liberty: women who spun homespun and refused British goods to support the boycotts