Destruction of the Liberty Pole in New York

Background. The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine political organization founded in the Thirteen Colonies to defend colonists' rights, including representation against British taxation. It played a major role in opposing the Stamp Act of 1765, the most incendiary tax, which provoked legislative resolutions, public demonstrations, and threats across the colonies.

New York Context. In New York, leaders of the opposition to the Stamp Act were popularly known around 1765 as the "Liberty Boys," though other colonies' Sons of Liberty recognized them under that name. A list compiled in Maryland on 1 March 1766 named New York City correspondents including John Lamb, Isaac Sears, William Wiley, Edward Laight, Thomas Robinson, Flores Bancker, Charles Nicoll, Joseph Allicoke, and Gershom Mott.

Liberty Poles. A liberty pole is a wooden pole, sometimes a spear or lance, surmounted by a cap of liberty, mostly the Phrygian cap. Such poles were commonly erected in town squares in the years before and during the American Revolution. In New York City, an often violent struggle over poles erected by the Sons of Liberty raged for ten years, with the poles periodically destroyed by royal authorities only to be replaced with new ones.