Mob Activities in Revolutionary Massachusetts

Abstract

pT HE fires of opposition which Grenville's Stamp Act had kindled throughout Massachusetts, continued to smolder after the act was repealed and burst forth with increasing flame at the news of Townshend's Import Duties and Customs Commission. Radical leaders carefully fanned the blaze through newspapers, clubs, and town meetings. They organized non-consumption and non-importation agreements, and cultivated that most efficient of all agents of intimidation, the mob. The mob, of course, is not confined to any particular age or country, but is apt to be found wherever there is crowded humanity and social unrest. Its first appearance is often sudden and unexpected; its later activities may be sporadic, or continuous and highly organized. It feeds on discontent, and is fostered by political propaganda. It becomes a menace to society whenever governmental machinery is careless or inadequate. Such conditions existed in many parts of the AngloSaxon world during the last half of the eighteenth century. Hence, this was preeminently an era of mob activity. Unemployment, following a series of wars, had filled many of the towns and cities with poor, idle, and often reckless men. They had little happiness, less humanity, and a great hatred of the classes above them. They had no share in government, and considered it an