Showing results for "Liberty" in Colonial Period

'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' is the best-known phrase from the Declaration of Independence, one of the most important documents of the eighteenth century and the whole Enlightenment Age. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it is frequently evoked today as a shorthand for that idea we call the 'American Dream'. But this is a line with a surprising history. Rather than being uniquely American, the vision it encapsulates - of a free and happy world - owes a great deal to British thinkers too.

In 1620, separatists from the Church of England set sail across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Understanding themselves as spiritual pilgrims, they left to preserve their liberty to worship God in accordance with their understanding of the Bible. There exists, however, an alternative, more dispiriting version of their story. In it, the Pilgrims are religious zealots who persecuted dissenters and decimated the Native peoples through warfare and by stealing their land. The Pilgrims' definition of liberty was, in practice, very narrow.

The new single-volume edition of Conceived in Liberty is here! After so many years of having to juggle four volumes, the Mises Institute has finally put it all together in a single book. This makes it easier to listen to and makes clearer just what a contribution this book is to the history of libertarian literature. There's never been a better time to remember the revolutionary and even libertarian roots of the American founding, and there's no better guide to what this means in the narrative of the colonial period than Murray Rothbard.

Over a few weeks in 1741, 10 fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. Tried and convicted before the colony's Supreme Court, 13 black men were burned at the stake and 17 were hanged. Four whites, the alleged ringleaders of the plot, were also hanged, and seven more were pardoned on condition that they never set foot in New York again.

The settlement of North America was the beginning of a new era in human history. The oppressive laws, habits, and customs of the Old World no longer held such power over those who had made the treacherous journey across the Atlantic. No reigning monarch or dictatorial power ever stepped onto the ground of North America. Yet, despite this, the men and women of the 13 colonies of North America were still not free until they threw off the shackles of England's government and asserted their own rights.

New attention from historians and journalists is raising pointed questions about the founding period: was the American revolution waged to preserve slavery, and was the Constitution a pact with slavery or a landmark in the antislavery movement? We have long needed a history of the founding that fully includes Black Americans in the Revolutionary protests, the war, and the debates over slavery and freedom that followed. We now have that history in Edward J. Larson's insightful synthesis of the founding.

John Jay served as the inaugural president of a pioneering antislavery society. His descendants, especially his son William and his grandson John Jay II, embraced radical abolitionism in the nineteenth century, the cause most likely to rend the nation. The scorn of their elite peers—and racist mobs—did not deter their commitment to end southern slavery and to combat northern injustice. This remarkable family story forces us to grapple with what we mean by patriotism, conservatism, and radicalism. Their story speaks directly to our own divided times.

On Sunday, September 9, 1739, 20 Kongolese slaves armed themselves by breaking into a storehouse near the Stono River south of Charleston, South Carolina. They killed 23 white colonists, joined forces with other slaves, and marched toward Spanish Florida. There they expected to find freedom. One report claims the rebels were overheard shouting, "Liberty!" Before the day ended, however, the rebellion was crushed, and afterwards many surviving rebels were executed.

For over 200 years, Americans have been fascinated by the Revolutionary period and the patriots who led the growing resistance movement against British authority. In particular, the clandestine activities of Boston's Sons of Liberty in the decade before the war continue to be a source of both intrigue and mystery. The Sons of Liberty chronicles the amazing lives and careers of the four most famous members of the Sons of Liberty, examines their relationships before and during the Revolution, and analyzes their lasting legacies. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Samuel Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere and John Hancock like you never have before.

In the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, the American colonies are teetering on the brink of disaster. With the threat of unbridled control by the British Parliament, Boston patriots seek to overturn their motherland's tyrannical practices.