History of New England political freedoms and local democracy, which they felt was increasingly threatened by the English government. The main grievance was taxation, which colonists argued could only be imposed by their own legislatures and not by the Parliament in London. Their political cry was "no taxation without representation." A ship was planning to land tea in Boston on December 16, 1773, and Patriots associated with the Sons of Liberty raided the ship and dumped all the tea into the harbor. This Boston Tea Party outraged British officials, and the King and Parliament decided to punish Massachusetts, passing the Intolerable Acts in 1774.
Sons of Liberty to British policies in Palestine. It called itself the "Sons of Liberty." The patriotic spirit of the Sons of Liberty has been used by Walt Disney Pictures through their 1957 film adaptation of Esther Forbes' novel "Johnny Tremain". Within the movie, the Sons of Liberty sing a rousing song titled "The Liberty Tree". This song raises the Liberty Tree to a national icon in a manner similar to the way in which George M. Cohan's "You're a Grand Old Flag" revitalized respect for the American flag in the early twentieth century. In the 1995 alternative history novel "The Two Georges",