Revolutionary Hemp: Part 1 – In Defense of our Liberty Tree, 1765

“The World should never forget the spot where once stood Liberty Tree” – Marquis de Lafayette

‘Liberty Tree’ by David Sears, 1775

Revolutionary Hemp: Part 1 – In Defense of our Liberty Tree

In order to birth a free country, we are taught our founding fathers fought for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

What many don’t know is the true story of how our freedom was first born not by bullets, cannons or war, no! Our country was birthed from Hemp and our Liberty Tree!

‘Bostonians Reading the Stamp Act’, from Stranger’s Illustrated Guide to Boston and Its Suburbs by J. H. Stark, 1882

Following two long and costly wars ending in 1763, the British were deep in debt and badly needed revenue back in England. Looking to their colonies in America to foot the bill, the Sugar Act was passed by Parliament in March 1764.

“it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom … and … it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised … for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same.” – Preamble to the Sugar Act 1764

This new Sugar Act would replace the expiring Molasses Act which taxed a gallon of raw molasses at 6 pence. The Molasses Act had long been ignored in the American colonies, with colonist choosing to smuggle the sugar to avoid paying the high tax.

This new act would cut the taxed amount in half charging just 3 pence per gallon hoping the rebel colonist would now chose to just pay the tax rather then smuggling it illegally.

Instead of seeing the act as a reduction in tax, men like Samuel Adams viewed this new act as “Taxation without Representation”.

“For if our Trade may be taxed why not our Lands? Why not the Produce of our Lands & every thing we possess or make use of? This we apprehend annihilates our Charter Right to govern & tax ourselves – It strikes our British Privileges, which as we have never forfeited them, we hold in common with our Fellow Subjects who are Natives of Britain: If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?” – Samuel Adams in his report against the Sugar Act, May 1764

“O! the fatal Stamp. An Emblem of the Effects of the STAMP.” printed in the Pennsylvania Journal October 1764

When the Sugar Act failed to supply enough revenue back in England, a new plan was badly needed.

In a late night meeting on March 22, 1765, Parliament voted on a new idea for revenue, the Stamp Act! This late night vote would forever change the world…

The Stamp Act put a tax on all printed paper including ships logs, licenses, land sales, any legal document, all newspapers and pamphlets, even playing cards and dice would need a tax stamp. The heaviest taxes were designed to limit the growth of a professional class in the colonies affecting lawyers, printers and even students trying to get an education.

With an effective date of this new tax of November 1, 1765, a few colonist believed something needed to be done.

On the night of August 13, 1765, a secret group who would become known as the Loyal Nine meet at the Chase & Speakman’s distillery in Boston to plot the first public act of protest to British rule and the new tax stamp act…

For this historic first act of rebellion the Loyal Nine chose to send their message to the British with Hemp!

The Liberty Tree, engraving from 1898

Early the very next morning of August 14, 1765, a crowd had already begun to gather across the street from this clandestine meeting, all assembled around a large elm tree in the front yard of Deacon John Elliott on the corner of Essex and Orange Streets (now Washington Street).

Hanging from a hemp rope strung high on the giant elm tree’s branch, dangled a straw-stuffed effigy by the neck labeled “A. O.” symbolizing Andrew Oliver (the man responsible for collecting taxes on the new Stamp Act).

On another branch a single British soldier’s boot with its sole painted green also swung in the wind by a hemp rope. The boot was a veiled reference to the two British ministers the Loyal Nine felt were responsible for the passing of the Stamp Act, the Earl of Bute (the boot a pun on “Bute”) and Lord George Grenville (the green painted sole symbolizing his name).

The hemp hung effigies held one more message of revolution, coming from within the boot was a small figure of the devil holding a copy of the Stamp Act. A sign hung from the devil’s arm that read…

“What Greater Joy did ever New England see,
Than a Stampman hanging on a Tree!”

‘The Colonists Under Liberty Tree’ of the events of the Stamp Act Riots in August 14, 1765. illustration from Cassell’s Illustrated History of England 1865

Wishing to quickly stomp out this rebellious act, the Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson sent for the sheriff of Suffolk County to cut the offending effigies down immediately.

The sheriff chose to send a small party of soldiers to carry out the cleanup mission. The men quickly returned empty handed reporting they “could not do it without imminent danger to their lives” from the now large gathered crowd.

The spirit of Revolution had begun!

‘The Stamp Act Riots in Boston’ August 14, 1765. illustration from Cassell’s Illustrated History of England 1865

Throughout the day, the crowd continued to grow in size under the Liberty Tree as word of the hemp hanging effigy traveled. The protest seemed to have forethought when organizers began stopping passing carriages on the street, mockingly searching and stamping all the goods inside with fake stamps.

By the time the sun set on the scene, the crowd had turned rowdy. Lead by Ebenezer MacIntosh, the enforcer of the Loyal Nine, the mob cut down the hanging effigy of Andrew Oliver. Staging a mock funeral procession, the gathered mob marched to the Town House (where legislature met).

The crowd quickly escalated continuing the funeral parade to Oliver’s brand new office building, what would have been the new Stamp Revenue office. Ripping the building apart board by board, the mob stamped each timber symbolically mocking the Stamp Act.

When the building was leveled to the ground, the crowd excited by the rebellion continued their funeral march still carrying Oliver’s effigy.

Arriving at Oliver’s home, the mob ceremoniously beheaded Oliver’s effigy to a sea of cheers. Tearing apart his stage house and carriages for firewood, the crowd burned the beheaded figure in the street right in front of his home.

As the mob began to ransack Oliver’s home and brake out the windows, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson and sheriff Stephen Greenleaf showed up to try to stop the protest’s actions. The crowd responded by ripping bricks right from the home and throwing them at Hutchinson and Greenleaf until they were forced to retreat.

Wood Engraving of the Sons of Liberty Protesting the Stamp Act by Attacking the House of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson at Boston on 26 August 1765, by John Warner Barber

The unruly protest would see an instant reaction when the very next day Andrew Oliver, under threat of his homes entire destruction and fearing for his families safety, decided to officially resign from his position of the Stamp Collector.

Wanting to make the resignation official in the typical manner at Town House, Oliver would be ‘persuaded’ by the Loyal Nine to make the announcement directly to the public under the Liberty Tree which he had hung from just weeks earlier.

“Tuesday-Morning, December 17, 1765. The True-born Sons of Liberty, are desired to meet under LIBERTY-TREE, at XII o’Clock, THIS DAY, to hear the public Resignation, under Oath, of Andrew Oliver, Esq; Distributor of Stamps for the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay. A Resignation? Yes.”

– Sons of Liberty, Broadside from December 17, 1765

Sons of Liberty Broadside from December 17, 1765

In January 1766, future President John Adams meet with the ‘Sons of Liberty’ at Thomas Chase’s distillery across from the liberty tree writing in his journal, “Spent the Evening with the Sons of Liberty, at their own Apartment in Hanover Square, near the Tree of Liberty”. Adams describes the conversation with “No plotts, no Machinations” from the Sons of Liberty, only talk of the celebrations after the Stamp Act was repealed adding, “I wish they mayn’t be disappointed”.

Sam Adams and other patriots—wearing the tri-cornered hat—force the stamp official (wearing wig) to resign under the liberty tree, 1974

When the Stamp Act was repealed in early 1766, the town of Boston gathered to celebrate its win under the Liberty Tree. The crowd hung streamers and flags from it’s mighty branches, a symbol to the flag raised by the Loyal Nine to call a meeting at the tree’s base nicknamed ‘Liberty Hall’.

As night fell on the party, dozens of lanterns were lit and hung from the tree to illuminate the ongoing celebration. The lanterns had wrought crowns of elm leaf finials, a direct reference to the importance of the liberty tree.

During the celebration a copper plaque was made and nailed into the base of the Liberty Tree reading,

“This tree was planted in the year 1646, and pruned by order of the Sons of Liberty, Feb. 14th, 1766.”

‘The Bostonians Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring and Feathering Boston Commissioner of Customs John Malcolm’ by Philip Dawe October 31, 1774 (notice the Hemp noose hanging in the Liberty Tree)

For almost a decade following the Stamp Act Riots, the Liberty Tree would serve as a meeting spot, a soap box, a judge and a symbol for freedom in America.

Both sides would use its shade to make examples of men in the fight, using tar, feather and hemp rope to demonstrate their fury.

The British would get their revenge on the American symbol of Liberty in 1775 during the Siege of Boston. Following the first military battles of Concord and Lexington, the British sent a large military force to take control of Boston.

Seeking revenge from battle, soldiers lead by Job Williams chopped down the Liberty Tree and burned the entire tree in a bonfire under its own shadows.

“They made a furious attack upon it. After a long spell of laughing and grinning, sweating, swearing, and foaming with malice diabolical, they cut down the tree because it bore the name of liberty.”

– The Essex Gazette, August 31st, 1775

The Essex Gazette article also added “A soldier was killed by falling from one of its branches during the operation”, as if its destiny was known the tree itself would claim the first death in defense of our Liberty Tree!

‘A View of the Year 1765’, To the far right on the cartoon is a tree labeled “Liberty Tree August 14, 1765” with an effigy of John Huske dangling from its branches. In front are two men conversing and pointing to the effigy. One states, “there’s that villain H-k” and the other “I see he’s got a high place.” engraving by Paul Revere in 1765

With the cry of revolution now sounding across the colonies, Thomas Paine penned a poem that would become the battle cry throughout the war giving ode to our Liberty Tree…

Liberty Tree

In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came;
Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame.

A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.

The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourished and bore;
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around,
To seek out this peaceable shore.

Unmindful of names or distinctions they came,
For freemen like brothers agree;
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued,
And their temple was Liberty Tree.

Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old,
Their bread in contentment they ate
Unvexed with the troubles of silver and gold,
The cares of the grand and the great.

With timber and tar they Old England supplied,
And supported her power on the sea;
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,
For the honor of Liberty Tree.

But hear, O ye swains, ’tis a tale most profane,
How all the tyrannical powers,
Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain,
To cut down this guardian of ours;

From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,
Through the land let the sound of it flee,
Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer,
In defense of our Liberty Tree.

– Thomas Paine, printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1775

The memorial plaque of the Liberty Tree on the side of the building at the original spot the tree stood. Boston, Massachusetts