Libertas, Liberty Pole, Liberty Tree, John Wilkes and the Sons of Liberty

 Libertas, Liberty Pole, Liberty Tree, John Wilkes and the Sons of Libertyⁱ

i 

Libertas

Libertas, the Goddess of Liberty became an object of Roman veneration when the people of Rome rebelled against the Roman monarchy, overthowing the tyrant King Tarquin the Proud and establishing the Roman Republic, circa 509 B.C. Thus, Libertas became associated from the start with Republican government. During the Roman Republic, Libertas also became associated with individual freedom and the act of manumission of slaves. As described at Wiki:

Libertas was associated with the pileus, commonly worn by the freed slave:

Among the Romans the cap of felt was the emblem of liberty. When a slave obtained his freedom he had his head shaved, and wore instead of his hair an undyed pileus . . . Hence the phrase servos ad pileum vocare is a summons to liberty, by which slaves were frequently called upon to take up arms with a promise of liberty . . . "The figure of Liberty on some of the coins of Antoninus Pius, struck A.D. 145, holds this cap in the right hand".

Libertas was also recognized in ancient Rome by the rod . . . used ceremonially in the act of Manumissio vindicta, Latin for 'freedom by the rod' (emphasis added):

The master brought his slave before the magistratus, and stated the grounds (causa) of the intended manumission. "The lictor of the magistratus laid a rod (festuca) on the head of the slave, accompanied with certain formal words, in which he declared that he was a free man ex Jure Quiritium", that is, "vindicavit in libertatem". The master in the meantime held the slave, and after he had pronounced the words "hunc hominem liberum volo," he turned him round (momento turbinis exit Marcus Dama . . .) and let him go (emisit e manu, or misit manu, . . . ), whence the general name of the act of manumission. The magistratus then declared him to be free [...]

Note that Libertas stands as one of our great monuments in New York – The Statue of Liberty, dressed in her Roman robes.

Liberty Pole and John Wilkes

The “liberty pole” became itself a separate symbol of liberty, tying back to the Goddess Libertas. The rod used in manumission adorned with the felt cap was a symbol of freedom from slavery. When dissident Senators assassinated Julius Caeser in 44 B.C. because he had become a dictator, they marched through the streets thereafter, carrying a felt hat (a “cap of liberty”) atop a spear.

After the Rennasaince, the Liberty Pole became a common means of depicting individual and political liberty. In colonial America of the 1760's, the single most famous example of a person suffering a tyrant's persecution was John Wilkes, the publisher unlawfully prosecuted by King George III ostensibly for blasphemy, but actually for daring to criticize the King. Here, in a satirical portrait of John Wilkes by William Hogarth in 1764, shows Wilkes sitting with a Liberty Pole leaning against him.

Issac Barre and the “Sons of Liberty”

Issac Barre was a British military officer who served extensively in North America during the French and Indian War, He suffered a debilitating and disfiguring wound at the Battle of Quebec, causing the loss of his right eye. Barre, a Whig, was later elected a member of Parliament, where he became a staunch and eloquent supporter of American colonists. His perception of Britain's American colonists could not have been more accurate. It was Barre who gave the name of “sons of liberty” to those Americans protesting the 1765 Stamp Act, during an exchange before Parliament with Charles Townshend, an MP who supported the Stamp Act:

Mr Townshend: “Will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence till they are grown up to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms… will they grudge to contribute to relieve us from the heavy burden under which we lie?”

Mr Barre: “[Were] they planted by your care? No! Your oppression planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe, the most subtle, and I take upon me to say, the most formidable of any people upon the face of God’s earth…

[Were] they nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them, in one department and another… sent to spy out their liberty, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon them; men whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of these sons of liberty to recoil within them… [emphasis added]

[Were] they protected by your arms? They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, they have exerted a valour amidst their constant and laborious industry for the defence of a country whose frontier, while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded all its little savings to your emolument [compensation].

The [American] people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the king has. But they are a people jealous of their liberties and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated; but the subject is too delicate and I will say no more.”

Barre's famous phrase, the “sons of liberty,” was soon adopted in America, first by a group of Bostonians opposed to the Stamp Act, and then by like groups in every one of the North American colonies.

Liberty Trees

The Liberty Tree was an invention of the American colonists. The first “Sons of Liberty” organization in Boston chose “an old elm tree at the corner of what is now Essex and Washington Streets [in Boston] as the site of their first protest. . . . A few weeks later, a copper plate appeared on the tree, declaring it the “Tree of Liberty.”” Soon, virtually every “Sons of Liberty” organization held their meetings – when not in a tavern – under their own “Liberty Tree.”

In Charleston, S.C., the "Liberty Tree" was “a majestic live oak” located in the boroughs outside of Charleston proper. Specifically:

“large live-oak tree, in Mr. Mazyck’s pasture.” A similar pair of newspaper notices published in 1769 both identified Liberty Tree as standing “in Mr. Mazyck’s pasture.” . . .

Mr. Mazyck’s pasture was a large parcel of land on the east side of the Charleston peninsula, adjacent to the Cooper River, that was owned by the Mazyck family between the 1690s and the 1790s. At this point, I could dive into the long history of the Mazyck property that eventually became Mazyckborough, but I’ll resist the temptation and save that conversation for another time. For the moment, I’ll simply note that Mr. Mazyck’s pasture encompassed all the land now bounded on the south by Calhoun Street, on the north by Chapel Street, on the west by Elizabeth Street, and on the east by the Cooper River. Christopher Gadsden (1724–1805) purchased in 1758 the land immediately to the south of Mazyck’s pasture, now covered by the Gaillard Center for the Performing Arts and Gadsden’s Wharf. A tidal inlet flowing westward from the Cooper River once formed a natural boundary between the lands Mr. Mazyck and Mr. Gadsden. That inlet is now the eastern part of Calhoun Street, right in front of the Charleston County Public Library’s main branch, and still tends to flood during heavy rains at high tide.

Both Mazyck’s pasture and Gadsden’s Green, as it was once called, stood outside the original boundaries of urban Charleston until the creation of Boundary (now Calhoun) Street in 1769–70. That thoroughfare created a new boundary between the town and what was then called “the Neck.” From that point forward, Mr. Gadsden’s property, including what would become Gadsden’s Wharf, were technically within the unincorporated limits of Charleston proper, while Mr. Mazyck’s pasture remained outside the town. Knowledge of this information helps us to understand a subtle but useful geographic clue contained within a colonial-era source.

The two earliest published notices of events at Liberty Tree, dating from October 1768, both mention that the men who gathered there returned to Charleston by way of King Street. At that time, there were no thoroughfares in the neighborhood. Meeting Street terminated at Boundary Street prior to 1785 (see Episode No. 81). The tidal inlet that once formed part of Calhoun Street prevented traffic from flowing north and south along what is now Alexander Street and from Elizabeth to Anson Street. King Street, called the “Broad Path” immediately outside the town, was the only road leading in and out of the colonial capital. To reach Liberty Tree in the 1760s and 1770s, therefore, most Charlestonians would have travelled north on King Street and passed through the Horn Work. Turning east just outside the town gate, they could have walked in a straight line that is now Charlotte Street approximately 2,200 feet through Mr. Wragg’s pasture into Mr. Mazyck’s pasture. Unless they arrived by boat from the Cooper River, their return to town would have followed the same route in reverse.

. . . .  Alexander Street to witness the unveiling of a handsome bronze tablet containing a brief text commemorating the famous tree. To this day, it remains affixed to a brick column near the façade of No. 80 Alexander Street, opposite the rear driveway of the Charleston County Public Library.

Like his father before him, Rev. John Johnson probably grew up hearing stories about Liberty Tree and his family’s active participation in the struggle for American independence. It’s not unreasonable to think that Doctor Johnson might have taken his son to see the site of the famous tree near the corner of Charlotte and Alexander Streets. At the turn of the twentieth century, Rev. Johnson might have described to his colleagues how his uncle, William Johnson, had excavated its roots at the turn of the nineteenth century. Informed by these family traditions and documentation in 1905, the Sons of the Revolution selected what I believe is a remarkably appropriate site for their bronze marker. Considering the streetscape of modern Mazyckborough, it stands at a logical spot for such a public memorial, approximately one hundred and forty feet west-southwest of the tree’s former location.