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 the flags, although other color combinations were used, such as green and white or yellow and white. At various times, small secret organizations took the name "sons of liberty". They generally left very few records. The name was also used during the American Civil War. By 1864, the Copperhead group the Knights of the Golden Circle set up an offshoot called "Order of the Sons of Liberty". They both came under federal prosecution in 1864 for treason, especially in Indiana. A radical wing of the Zionist movement launched a boycott in the U.S. against British films in 1948, in response