On this day 250 years ago in the Revolution — May 19, 1774

On this day 250 years ago in Farmington, Connecticut, almost one thousand people assembled to erect a forty-five feet high Liberty Pole. After erecting the Liberty Pole a copy of the  Boston Port Act was read to the crowd, and then burned. The assembly then adopted the following resolutions:

1st. That it is the greatest dignity, interest, and happiness of every American to be united with our parent state, while our liberties are duly secured, maintained, and supported by our rightful sovereign, whose person we greatly revere; whose government while duly administered, we are ready with our lives and properties to support.

2d. That the present ministry, being instigated by the devil, and led on by their wicked and corrupt hearts, have a design to take away our liberties and properties, and to enslave us forever.

3d. That the late Act which their malice hath caused to be passed in Parliament, for blocking up the port of Boston, is unjust, illegal, and oppressive; and that we, and every American, are sharers in the insults offered to the town of Boston.

4th. That those pimps and parasites who dared to advise their master to such detestable measures be held in utter abhorrence by us and every American, and their names loaded with the curses of all succeeding generations.

5th. That we scorn the chains of slavery; we despise every attempt to rivet them upon us; we are the sons of freedom, and resolved, that, till time shall be no more, that god-like virtue shall blazon our hemisphere.

Source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/proc_farm_ct_1774.asp

Also on that day in Williamsburg, Virginia, Clementina Rind published in her Virginia Gazette, an article she wrote criticizing the Boston Port Act and British despotism and defending “the liberties of the colonies.”

Source: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg.org/learn/deep-dives/clementina-rind/


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