Prior knowledge: No prior reading of the book. Understand that the Continental Army fought for independence from Britain; each scene explains its disputed obligation.
Before you begin
Begin in Massachusetts Bay in 1632, continue under the Dominion of New England in 1687, and finish with Continental soldiers in New Jersey in 1781. The institutions and stakes change substantially. A town’s refusal to cooperate and armed resistance within an army must be compared with attention to the people affected and the available alternatives.
Does a tax require the consent of the community expected to pay it?
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. Boston, 17 February 1632. The men of Watertown stand before Governor Winthrop and the assistants and argue that paying a tax laid without their consent would bring them and their children into bondage. Rothbard calls it the first tax strike in America. They were made to sign a retraction, yet that year the freemen won a say over taxes. Chapter 19 of Conceived in Liberty.
Before this scene
Massachusetts Bay’s governor and assistants ordered a tax to pay for a fort at Newtown. Watertown was assigned a share, but its pastor and elder urged residents not to pay money imposed in that way. A levy is an official demand for payment. The governor and assistants held taxing power under the charter, the document defining the colony’s government. The conflict concerned who could exercise that power and whether towns needed their own representatives in the decision. Winthrop records the hearing on 17 February 1632, not the levy’s exact date.
[1][2]
The episode
Companion narration combining the book and other sources; this is not Rothbard’s original text.
Early in 1632 the governor and assistants of Massachusetts Bay ordered a rate of 60 pounds on the settlements to build a fort at Newtown, and sent Watertown a warrant for its share, 8 pounds. Watertown’s pastor and elder called the people together and told them it was not safe to pay money laid on them that way, for fear of bringing themselves and their posterity into bondage. The charter had given the power to tax to the governor and a dozen assistants, and they had kept it to themselves. On 17 February Governor John Winthrop and the assistants summoned the Watertown men to Boston. After much debate the townsmen gave way, confessed their error and signed a retractation to be read in their own meeting the next Lord’s day. Winthrop wrote that they had mistaken the council for a mayor and aldermen with no power to tax. Rothbard calls the refusal “the first tax strike in America,” made on “the great old English ground that no community may be taxed without its own consent” (CiL, p. 160), and he says the government bowed to it. Before the year was out the freemen took the power to choose the governor and assistants and to make tax levies, through two deputies elected by every town. The townsmen had lost the argument in the room and won it in the colony.
Why it matters
Interpretation: The outcome must be considered on more than one scale: the hearing ended in a retraction, while Rothbard connects the wider dispute with later representative control. An immediate setback and an institutional change are different kinds of result.
[1][2]
Examine and discuss
What was the levy intended to fund, and what objection did Watertown raise?
How do Winthrop’s account of the hearing and Rothbard’s account of later changes differ in emphasis?
What evidence would distinguish consent to a tax from compliance under pressure?
Read further and reconstruction
Volume I, chapter 19: The Founding of Massachusetts Bay. The event and its interpretation are supported by the sources below. Pose, expression, lighting, and composition are artistic choices, not a visual record of the event.
When does refusing to administer a rule become a form of resistance?
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. Ipswich, Massachusetts, August 1687. Andros’s council has ordered every town to name a commissioner for a new tax, with no assembly asked. In the town meeting the Reverend John Wise tells his neighbors to stand for their privileges, and the whole assembly votes, twice, to refuse. Rothbard says Wise, town clerk John Appleton and four other leaders went to jail for it. Chapter 56 of Conceived in Liberty.
Before this scene
The Dominion of New England combined colonies under Sir Edmund Andros. His council governed without an elected assembly and required towns to choose commissioners to help assess a tax. A commissioner was an official assigned this administrative task. Ipswich’s leaders met before the town meeting and opposed raising money without a General Assembly. On 23 August 1687 the town refused to choose a commissioner. Its objection targeted the machinery that would implement the tax, rather than merely a payment already demanded from one person.
[1][2]
The episode
Companion narration combining the book and other sources; this is not Rothbard’s original text.
In the spring of 1687 Sir Edmund Andros’s council, sitting with no elected assembly, ordered every town in the Dominion to elect a commissioner to help assess a new tax. On the night of 22 August the selectmen and leading men of Ipswich, with the minister John Wise, met at the town clerk John Appleton’s house and agreed that “it was not the town’s duty any way to assist that ill way of raising money without a General Assembly.” The next day the town met in legal town meeting. Wise spoke vigorously against a tax laid without a vote of the people’s own representatives, and told his neighbors they had a good God and a good king and should do well to “stand for our privileges.” The whole assembly voted, twice, that it was “not willing to choose a Commissioner,” and forbade the selectmen to lay any rate until a General Assembly agreed (Waters, Ipswich, pp. 238-239). Other Essex towns followed Ipswich. Then the government struck. Wise, Appleton and four more Ipswich men were arrested, tried before Dudley, Stoughton, Usher and Randolph, jailed for nearly a month and fined, Wise and Appleton fifty pounds each on a thousand-pound bond, and the resistance to the tax collapsed. Rothbard says the order “abridged their liberty as Englishmen” (CiL, p. 406). When Wise pleaded the rights of Englishmen, Dudley told him that he had no more privileges left “than not to be sold for slaves” (p. 406).
Why it matters
Interpretation: A town can resist a distant government by withholding local cooperation. The arrests and fines that followed also show why a coordinated refusal may be difficult to sustain.
[1][2]
Examine and discuss
Why did the government need towns to choose commissioners?
What costs did the Ipswich leaders face for their refusal?
Compare Ipswich with Watertown: how did the institution imposing the tax and the form of resistance differ?
Read further and reconstruction
Volume I, chapter 56: The Dominion of New England. The event and its interpretation are supported by the sources below. Pose, expression, lighting, and composition are artistic choices, not a visual record of the event.
Scene and complete sources: https://freecapitalists.org/books/conceived-in-liberty/episodes/ipswich-meeting-1687/
Painting and companion additions: CC BY 4.0, credit freecapitalists.org. Source text: CC BY 3.0. External sources retain their own terms.
Connecting the scenes: Almost a century later, the conflict is within the army defending independence. Soldiers dispute pay and service, and resistance becomes armed.
Scene 3 of 3 · 1 January 1781 · Morristown and Princeton, New Jersey · Volume IV, chapter 49
How should soldiers’ grievances be weighed against military obedience?
Content note: The narrative describes an officer killed during the mutiny, emissaries executed as spies, and executions after the separate New Jersey mutiny.
Modern AI-assisted reconstruction. Morristown, New Jersey, January 1781. At night, Sergeant William Bonzar leads six regiments of the Pennsylvania Line out of camp behind the artillery they have seized, bound for Congress. They are paid in worthless paper, and they will not serve past their three years. Rothbard praises them for putting justice and liberty above military obedience. Chapter 49 of Conceived in Liberty.
Before this scene
The Continental Army was the force fighting for American independence. By the winter of 1780–81 its soldiers faced unpaid wages and depreciating paper money, meaning money that bought less as its value fell. Pennsylvania soldiers also disputed how long they were obliged to serve. Rothbard describes men who understood their enlistments as three years, while officers insisted they remain until the war ended. The Pennsylvania Line, a group of regiments, therefore faced a conflict over both material conditions and the terms of service.
[1][2]
The episode
Companion narration combining the book and other sources; this is not Rothbard’s original text.
By the winter of 1780, the Continental Army was falling apart. Congress had printed paper money until it was nearly worthless, and the soldiers were paid in it, when they were paid at all, and the states’ price controls only shut off supplies. The Pennsylvania Line, camped in log huts at Morristown, had enlisted for three years, and the officers insisted they stay until the war ended. On the night of New Year’s Day 1781, the men turned out under arms, seized the artillery and left. One officer was killed and two wounded. Six regiments, Rothbard says, set out under Sergeant William Bonzar to march on Congress with their demands for discharge and back pay. Congress sent a committee under Joseph Reed to Princeton and gave way. Everyone who had served three years was discharged and the arrears paid, with an allowance for the paper dollar’s fall. General Clinton sent two emissaries to offer the mutineers pardon and British pay, and they handed the men over to Wayne, who hanged them as spies. Offered a gold reward for their fidelity, Bonzar said the men were not entitled to any other reward but the love of their country. When New Jersey regiments tried the same, Washington crushed them and had two men shot.
Why it matters
Interpretation: Resistance within a revolutionary army tests whether a claim to liberty applies to those ordered to defend it. Evaluating the mutiny also requires weighing its grievances, the violence it involved, and the risks to others.
[1][2]
Examine and discuss
What two kinds of grievance motivated the soldiers?
How did negotiation with the Pennsylvania soldiers differ from the response to the New Jersey mutiny described afterward?
Compare the mutiny with Ipswich’s refusal: which differences in means and consequences affect your judgment?
Historical notes
The name is William Bouzar, who headed the Board of Sergeants at Princeton and spoke to Wayne; the Journal of the American Revolution has John Williams of the 2nd Pennsylvania at its head at Mount Kemble and men of all the regiments at the start, fewer than half the Line at first and about 1,500 of about 2,400 in the end. The men went to Princeton first. Source and context
Read further and reconstruction
Volume IV, chapter 49: The End of the War in the North. The event and its interpretation are supported by the sources below. Pose, expression, lighting, and composition are artistic choices, not a visual record of the event.
Scene and complete sources: https://freecapitalists.org/books/conceived-in-liberty/episodes/pennsylvania-line-1781/
Painting and companion additions: CC BY 4.0, credit freecapitalists.org. Source text: CC BY 3.0. External sources retain their own terms.
Connect the cases
Use at least two scenes to propose criteria for legitimate resistance. Apply each criterion to the grievance, the available alternatives, the means used, and the consequences. Explain one case where your criteria leave a difficult judgment.
