In the American Revolution 'The Liberty Tree' was an American white elm in Boston, Massachusetts, in front of which, from 1765, the first resistance meetings were held against British attempts to tax the American colonists without democratic representation. When the British, knowing that the tree was a symbol of rebellion, felled it in 1775, the Americans took to widespread 'Liberty Elm' planting, and sewed elm symbols on to their revolutionary flags. Elm-planting by American Presidents later became something of a tradition.