Beginning ten years before the Revolution, the Sons of Liberty protested British control over their lives and livelihoods. Matthias Hammond, the young and wealthy planter who later commissioned the design and building of Hammond-Harwood House, was a member. So were other prominent Annapolitans of the day – Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Samuel Chase, Jeremiah Townley Chase, William Paca, Alexander Warfield.
Concern over taxes imposed on the colonists ignited into outrage. The Stamp Act of 1765 called for all forms of paper, from business documents to playing cards, to be stamped with a seal denoting a tax had been paid. This taxation betrayed Americans’ formal right of consent, due them as British citizens. Adding this burden to the previously imposed taxes on sugar and tea led colonists to start local protest groups called Committees of Correspondence, a loose coalition that spread from New England to North Carolina. The Sons of Liberty were born.
Annapolis Sons of Liberty were divided — radicals and moderates advocated different means to make their views known. Some members advocated violence, such as vandalism of British sympathizers’ businesses or acts against sympathizers like hanging them in effigy or tarring and feathering them. More moderate actions included demonstrations, public readings, and publishing broadsides and newspaper articles.
Unrest culminated in 1774 when the Sons of Liberty burned the tea-carrying brig Peggy Stewart in Annapolis harbor. Anthony Steward, the merchant transporting tea from England to Annapolis, chose to burn his own ship rather than face more dire consequences threatened by the radical arm of the Sons of Liberty. Mirroring the Boston Tea Party, this action was one of the many that propelled the American colonies to war – and eventually to freedom.
The paintings, engravings, printed works, and objects in the exhibition “Sons of Liberty: Patriots and Firebrands” tell the story of these early architects of the American Revolutionary War.
This exhibition has been made possible by the generous loans and cooperation of
Maryland Center for History and Culture
Maryland State Archives
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
New York Historical
New York Public Library
University of Maryland
St. John’s College, Greenfield Library
Funding and support was made possible by
Hammond-Harwood House Board of Trustees
Hammond-Harwood House Members and Supporters
Maryland State Arts Council
Arts Council of Anne Arundel County
