Isaac Sears - Sons of Liberty

Sons of Liberty

On October 31, 1765 the day before the Stamp Act was to take effect he was among the merchants assembled in New York City resolved to enforce opposition to distribution of the stamps and to curtail the importation of British goods. Sears organized and was a leader of the Sons of Liberty in 1765. They used violence and threats of violence to prevent the use of stamps. He was nicknamed "King Sears" for his influential role in organizing and leading the New York mob. He was at the head of nearly every demonstration of mob violence in New York City. He partnered with James DeLancey in opposition to the stamps and supported him in his 1768 election to the New York assembly. Sears and many of his followers were engaged in trade and they demanded that trade continue without stamps. In 1766, Sears, John Lamb and three others formed a committee of correspondence to communicate with other Sons of Liberty groups in other provinces. After the Stamp Act was repealed the Sons of Liberty erected a Liberty pole to celebrate. When the British cut down the pole for the first time, Sears was injured in a confrontation with the British. In 1768, he and numerous New York merchants sent a petition to Parliament outlining their grievances on the state of trade. In 1769, when the New York assembly passed an appropriation for funding of the Quartering act, he had posted an inflammatory broadside entitled "To the betrayed inhabitants of the city and colony of New York".

In January 1770, confrontation led by Sears with the British over the posting of broadsides and the liberty poles resulted in the Battle of Golden Hill. The fifth liberty pole was raised in 1770 on a plot of land owned by Sears. When the Tea Act was passed in 1773, he organized the city's captains into refusing to freight the East Indian tea. It was the first organized opposition to the tax. Broadsides, signed "The Mohawks", were posted warning against anyone trying to land tea. New York's opposition was partly responsible for Boston's decision to stop the landing of tea. Adams wrote, "we must venture, and unless we do, we shall be discarded by the sons of liberty in the other colonies". They were successful in preventing the landing of tea. In April 1774, they boarded the Nancy and destroyed its tea.

When in May, 1774 news of the Boston Port Act arrived, Sears and McDougall wrote a letter of support to Boston, without consulting anyone else, in addition to a British boycott, they proposed a ban on exports to the West Indies and called for a Continental Congress. Reaction in New York to the Boston Port Act was cautious and equivocal, there was a split with the DeLanceys on whether to proceed with nonimportantion.