The Sons of Liberty were a grassroots group of instigators and provocateurs in colonial America who used an extreme form of civil disobedience—threats, and in some cases actual violence—to intimidate loyalists and outrage the British government. The goal of the radicals was to ...read more
Andrew Oliver could have been excused if he didn’t feel very welcome in his hometown of Boston. After awaking on August 14, 1765, the wealthy 59-year-old merchant and provincial official learned that his effigy was hanging from a century-old elm tree in front of Deacon Elliot’s ...read more
Revolution was in the air in early 1775. Only a few months earlier, delegates from the American colonies had held the first Continental Congress and sent Britain’s King George III a petition for redress of grievances, among them the repeal of the so-called “Intolerable Acts.” A ...read more
1. Henry Knox From Henry Knox’s days as a teenaged street brawler in Boston, fighting was in his blood. Although the co-founder of the Boston Grenadier Corps lacked a military education, he knew where to find it—on the shelves of his shop, the London Book-Store. The plump, ...read more
1. Adams defended British soldiers after the Boston Massacre.Although Adams joined with the Sons of Liberty in objecting to what he believed was unfair taxation by the British government, the principled attorney believed in the primacy of the rule of law. After the killing of ...read more
1. Warren was one of Boston’s foremost physicians. After enrolling in Harvard at the age of 14, Warren began to exhibit an interest in medicine. By the age of 22, he was the youngest doctor in Boston. His patients included Samuel Adams, John Hancock and two future presidents—John ...read more
1. The Liberty Tree In 1765 a defiant group of patriots known as the Sons of Liberty rallied to protest the highly unpopular Stamp Act under the shade of a century-old elm tree located on the sole thoroughfare leading in and out of Boston. The young rebels decorated the stately ...read more
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and other dignitaries were on hand to witness the opening of one of the nation’s oldest time capsules yesterday evening (January 6) in the Art of the Americas wing at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA). Standing in front of a large painting ...read more
According to historical accounts, Samuel Adams (who by then had become governor of Massachusetts), Paul Revere and William Scollay placed the original contents of the time capsule in 1795, in a ceremony that started in downtown Boston and ended at the State House, then under ...read more
1. The “tea partiers” were not protesting a tax hike, but a corporate tax break. The protestors who caffeinated Boston Harbor were railing against the Tea Act, which the British government enacted in the spring of 1773. Rather than inflicting new levies, however, the legislation ...read more
During a speech before the second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry responds to the increasingly oppressive British rule over the American colonies by declaring, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Following the signing of ...read more
On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British ...read more
On this day in 1773, the British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government and, thus, granting it a de facto monopoly on the American tea trade. ...read more
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War (1775-83). Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts. On the night ...read more
In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a ...read more
In an effort to raise funds to pay off debts and defend the vast new American territories won from the French in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), the British government passes the Stamp Act on this day in 1765. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for ...read more
On this day in 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. Originally ...read more
These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have ...read more
In advance of the Continental Army’s occupation of Dorchester Heights, Massachusetts, General George Washington orders American artillery forces to begin bombarding Boston from their positions at Lechmere Point, northwest of the city center, on this day in 1776. After two ...read more
On this day in 1773, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships moored in Boston Harbor and dump 342 chests of tea into the water. Now known as the “Boston Tea Party,” the midnight raid was a protest of the Tea Act of 1773, a ...read more
On this day in 1775, British troops march out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the American arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes ...read more
On this day in 1774, British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston and demanding that the city’s residents pay for the nearly $1 million worth (in today’s money) of tea dumped into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773. The ...read more
On this day in 1765, Parliament passes the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers are to find room and board in the American colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the ...read more
On this day in 1774, the British Parliament renews the Quartering Act, allowing Redcoats to stay in private American homes if necessary. The Quartering Act, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act and the Boston Port Act, were ...read more
