Birth of the "Sons of Liberty"

Sometimes a phrase is uttered that captures the attention of people far beyond its original audience. During the Stamp Act debates in Parliament, Isaac Barre tried to defend the colonies. In his speech he not only defended the colonies, but he also presented a number of views that were welcomed in the colonies. He also uttered one phrase, sons of liberty, that gave him instant acclaim in the colonies. In the few seconds that he took to say the three words, he gave birth to the Sons of Liberty, a group originally founded to oppose the Stamp Act. In this excerpt he is speaking directly to Charles Townshend, an ardent advocate of Parliament's position, and the entire membership of Parliament. This resource also includes a short narrative on the origin of groups of Sons of Liberty in the colonies and a description of a typical Son of Liberty in 1775.

. . . [The colonies] planted by your Care? No! Your Oppressions planted [them] in America. They fled from your Tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable Country--where they exposed themselves to almost all the Cruelties of a Savage foe. And yet, actuated by Principles of true English Lyberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own Country, from the hands of those who should have been their Friends.

They nourished up by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of [them]: as soon as you began to care about [them], that Care was Exercised in sending persons to rule over [them] . . . who were perhaps the Deputies of Deputies to some Member of this house--sent to Spy out their Lyberty, to misrepresent their Actions and to prey upon [them]; men whose behaviour on many Occasions has caused the Blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them.

They protected by your Arms? They have nobly taken up Arms in your Defence [against the French and Indians], . . . for the defence of a Country, whose frontier, while drench'd in blood, . . . yielded all its little Savings to your Emolument [advantage]. And believe me, remember I this Day told you so, that same Spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first [beginning in 1607 at Jamestown] will accompany them still.

The original group calling itself the Sons of Liberty was established in New York City as a New York City committee of correspondence in opposition to the Stamp Act. This group became one of the most radical and persistent of the colonial groups opposing English laws. By the end of 1765, Sam Adams began using this term to refer to colonists who opposed any Acts of Parliament or royal orders aimed at the colonies. Most often the name Son of Liberty was given to any person, organized or not, who opposed selected policies and actions by the English government.

Ten years after Barre's speech, the New York Journal (March 23, 1775) reported that a Son of Liberty is ". . . a friend and asserter of the rights of the people, and the English Constitution, a warm patriot, and opposer of the tyrannical acts and pretensions of the British Parliament."