The Liberty Archive FREECAPITALISTS.ORG

Illustrated Episode · Volume III, chapter 34 · 11 August 1766

Cut down the Liberty Pole

On a dusty common a crowd of tradesmen and sailors falls back around a felled pine mast as red-coated soldiers rush in with bayonets and drawn swords, a stocky man in a dark coat standing ahead of the crowd with one hand raised.
New York, August 1766. Redcoats have cut down the Liberty Pole, and two or three thousand New Yorkers led by Isaac Sears gather on the Common to demand an explanation, only to watch soldiers rush in with bayonets and swords while the crowd gives ground. The Sons answer by raising another pole. Rothbard sees strong latent resistance beneath the calm that followed repeal. Chapter 34 of Conceived in Liberty.

Download the painting, full size (JPEG)CC BY 4.0

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit freecapitalists.org. How to credit.

Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

New York's Sons of Liberty raised their Liberty Pole on the Common in May 1766 to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act, a tall pine mast hung with a board for King George, Pitt and Liberty. It stood near the soldiers' barracks, and the soldiers exercised beside it. On 10 August, redcoats cut it down. The next day two or three thousand New Yorkers, chiefly Sons of Liberty headed by Isaac Sears, came out onto the Common to demand an explanation from the officers and men. Soldiers rushed the crowd with bayonets and swords, some of the blades bare, and the crowd retreated, with Sears reported among the hurt. Rothbard writes that the troops fired into the crowd, wounding several; the accounts of the day describe steel. The Sons, though largely disbanded, rose swiftly, and a new pole went up again for the King, Pitt and Liberty. The fight over poles went on for years, cut and raised again until Golden Hill. Rothbard calls it a minor incident that shows strong latent resistance under the calm, the people of New York who would not let an army dictate what they raised on their own common.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. III, ch. 34, 'Aftermath of Repeal', pp. 918-920, at p. 919; ch. 24, p. 879 for Sears. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. Journals of Capt. John Montresor, entry of 11 August 1766 (New-York Historical Society Collections, 1881), as quoted in secondary summaries read through a search summary; the journal itself was not read. Primary source
  3. 'Monuments of Colonial New York: George III and Liberty Poles', The Gotham Center for New York City History (a tall pine mast raised on the Common in 1766; redcoats from nearby barracks tore it down; New-York Gazette, 14 August 1766 cited). Secondary source
  4. Summaries of the 1766 accounts of the pole's felling and the clash on the Common (28th Regiment men from the Upper Barracks; bayonets and swords 'some sheathed and some unsheathed'; Sears reported wounded), read through a search summary; the underlying primary accounts were not identified. Secondary source
  5. 'God is Forgotten, and the Soldier Slighted': New York City's Golden Hill and Nassau Street Riots, The Gotham Center for New York City History (the 1766 pole razed 10 August, 2,000 to 3,000 led by Sears the next day; no gunfire mentioned). Secondary source