page_title: Liberty Tree
section_title: Other protests
hierarchical_section_title: Liberty Tree / History / Other protests
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Söhne der Freiheit, die einen Steuereintreiber unter dem Freiheitsbaum teeren und federn. English: A depiction of the tarring and feathering of Commissioner of Customs John Malcolm, a Loyalist, by five Patriots on 5 January 1774 under the Liberty Tree in Boston, Massachusetts. Tea is also being poured into Malcolm's mouth. The print shows the Boston Tea Party occurring in the background, though that incident had in fact taken place four weeks earlier. See The Bostonians paying the excise-man, or tarring and feathering.&#32;History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web, American Social History Project, Center for Media and Learning (CUNY Graduate Center) and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (George Mason University). Retrieved on 1 May 2011. Français&#160;: Caricature anglaise&#160;: John Malcolm passé au goudron et aux plumes, quatre semaines après la Boston Tea Party, à Boston. À l’arrière-plan, un arbre de la liberté, une corde et le Stamp Act affiché. עברית: תושבי בוסטון מזפתים ומכסים בנוצות איש מס בריטי ב-1774. Lietuvių: Amerikos lojalisto Džono Malkolmo viešas pažeminimas 1774 m. Bostone, su derva ir plunksnomis. Svenska: Propagandatryck från 1774 som visar hur en brittiskt tjänsteman bestryks med tjära och fjädrar fyra veckor efter tebjudningen i Boston. Man passar även på att hälla varmt te i hans mun.
context_page_description: The Liberty Tree was a famous elm tree that stood in Boston near Boston Common, in the years before the American Revolution. In 1765, colonists in Boston staged the first act of defiance against the British government at the tree. The tree became a rallying point for the growing resistance to the rule of Britain over the American colonies, and the ground surrounding it became known as Liberty Hall. The Liberty Tree was felled by Loyalist Nathaniel Coffin Jr. in August 1775.
context_section_description: The Loyal Nine eventually became part of a larger group, the Sons of Liberty. They continued to use the Liberty Tree as a gathering place for protests, leading loyalist Peter Oliver to write bitterly in 1781,
  This Tree stood in the Town, & was consecrated for an Idol for the Mob to Worship; it was properly the Tree ordeal, where those, whom the Rioters pitched upon as State delinquents, were carried to for Trial, or brought to as the Test of political Orthodoxy.
  During the Liberty Riot of 1768, to protest the seizure of John Hancock's ship by the Royal Navy, townspeople dragged a customs commissioner's boat out of the harbor all the way to the Liberty Tree, where it was condemned at a mock trial and burned on Boston Common. Two years later, a funeral procession for the victims of the Boston Massacre passed by the tree. It was also the site of protests against the Tea Act. In 1774, a customs official and staunch loyalist named John Malcolm was stripped to the waist, tarred and feathered, and forced to announce his resignation under the tree. The following year, Thomas Paine published an ode to the Liberty Tree in the Pennsylvania Gazette.
  In the years leading up to the war, the British made the Liberty Tree an object of ridicule. British soldiers tarred and feathered a man named Thomas Ditson, and forced him to march in front of the tree. During the Siege of Boston, a party of British soldiers and Loyalists led by Job Williams cut the tree down, knowing what it represented to the patriots, and used it for firewood. Later, in the Raid on Charlottetown (1775), American privateers sought revenge against the man who cut the tree down, Loyalist Nathaniel Coffin Jr.
  Following the British evacuation in 1776, patriots returning to Boston erected a liberty pole at the site. For many years the tree stump was used as a reference point by local citizens, similar to the Boston Stone. During an 1825 tour of Boston, the Marquis de Lafayette declared, "The world should never forget the spot where once stood Liberty Tree, so famous in your annals."
caption: The Sons of Liberty tarring and feathering John Malcolm under the Liberty Tree
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