Liberty pole
A liberty pole is a tall wooden pole, often used as a type of flagstaff, planted in the ground, which may be surmounted by an ensign or a liberty cap. They are associated with the Atlantic Revolutions of the late 18th century.
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[edit] American Revolution
A liberty pole were first often erected in town squares in the years before and during the American Revolution (e.g. Concord, Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; Caughnawaga, New York; Savannah, Georgia and Englewood, New Jersey[1]). Some colonists erected liberty poles on their own private land[citation needed][original research?] (such as in Woburn, Massachusetts—the pole raising there is reenacted annually[citation needed]). An often violent struggle over liberty poles erected by the Sons of Liberty in New York City raged for 10 years. The poles were periodically destroyed by the royal authorities (see the Battle of Golden Hill), only to be replaced by the Sons with new ones. The conflict lasted from the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 until the revolutionary New York Provincial Congress came to power in 1775.[2] The liberty pole in New York City had been crowned with a gilt vane bearing the single word, "Liberty".
In some locales—notably in Boston—a liberty tree rather than a pole served the same political purpose.
When an ensign was raised (usually red) on a liberty pole, it would be a calling for the Sons of Liberty or townspeople to meet and vent or express their views regarding British rule.[citation needed][original research?] The pole was known to be a symbol of dissent against Great Britain. The symbol is also apparent in many[weasel words] seals and coats of arms as a sign of liberty, freedom, and independence.[citation needed]
[edit] Other uses
During the Whiskey Rebellion, locals in western Pennsylvania would erect poles along the roads or in town centers as a protest against the federal government's tax on distilled spirits, and evoke the spirit embodied by the liberty poles of decades earlier.[3]
The arbres de la liberté ("liberty trees") were a symbol of the French Revolution, the first being planted in 1790 by a pastor of a Vienne village, inspired by the 1765 Liberty Tree of Boston. One was also planted in front of the City Hall of Amsterdam on 4 March 1795, in celebration of the alliance between the French Republic and the Batavian Republic. In 1798, with the establishment of the short-lived Roman Republic, a liberty tree was planted in Rome's Piazza delle Scole, to mark the legal abolition of the Roman Ghetto. After resumption of Papal rule, the Vatican reinstated the Roman ghetto.
The image of Liberty holding a pole topped by a Phrygian cap appears on many mid- and late-19th-century U.S. silver coins. These are broadly classified as United States Seated Liberty coinage.
[edit] References
- ^ Historic Englewood City of Englewood
- ^ Resistance and Dissent : Independence & its Enemies in New York
- ^ Baldwin, Leland Dewitt (1968). Whiskey rebels: the story of a frontier uprising. University of Pittsburgh Press. p. 208. http://books.google.com/books?id=QMF2AAAAMAAJ.
