How The Taverns of New York City Stirred The American Revolution

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The taverns of colonial New York City played a powerful role in the spread of revolutionary thought. While the Founding Fathers have long been credited with their speeches, writings, and political leadership, the roots of the American Revolution also lie in the conversations, arguments, meetings, and mobilization of ordinary colonists. In New York, those voices often gathered in taverns, where politics, social life, alcohol, and rebellion helped shape the city’s revolutionary culture.

Photo: “Fraunce’s Tavern” The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

The Founding Fathers of the United States have been given well-deserved credit for their role in the American Revolution. Their fiery speeches and brilliant writings have been studied for years by students of American History. However, recent trends in historical research have introduced new perspectives on the origins of the American Revolution. Writers such as T.H. Breen and Benjamin Carp have argued that the roots of the American Revolution lay in the hands of the common people. Breen has reasoned that without the support of the common people, there may have been no American Revolution.[1]

The landscape of the British colonies in the mid to late eighteenth century differed dramatically between the countryside and the crowded streets of cities. Revolutionary ideas and issues unfolded differently across cities and urban centers due to differing communication and cultural dynamics. However, it can be argued that there were dramatic differences in how revolutionary ideas spread not only between rural and urban centers but also between individual cities.

The Taverns of New York City offered a vastly different setting for shedding revolutionary ideas than the outdoor meetings in front of the State Buildings in Philadelphia. New York’s diverse immigrant population and the city’s proximity to the Atlantic defined a city intimately connected to the Atlantic world. [2] Philadelphia’s relationship with the Pennsylvania hinterland described a city not as diverse as New York, yet equally focused on raging revolution. Comparing the roots of the American Revolution in the streets of New York and the roads of Philadelphia revealed distinct differences between colonial city cultures that shared the same goals of freedom and independence.

Without communication, there can be no mobilization. Colonial cities offered access to information that could spread easily due to their dense, growing urban populations. Unfortunately, the British Imperialists did not take the colonial cities very seriously. The British Imperialists looked down on colonial cities and took them for granted.[3] The British did not understand the distinction between colonial cities and the countryside.[4] British ignorance of the role cities would play in the American Revolution proved a crucial mistake.

All major colonial cities during the pre-revolutionary period shared many common factors. In the cities, people from all social ranks came together to protest imperial policies.[5] In Benjamin Carp’s book Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution, the author refers to the city’s experience of revolution as the “cultural landscape” of the city, as noted by historians.[6] Carp explained that the “buildings, the material objects in the buildings and the space in between the buildings had been built by the many different ethnicities inhabiting the cities.”[7] The buildings hosted many different activities that would play a role in the revolution. Activities such as political meetings, bureaucratic meetings, ceremonies, economic exchange, and even riots all took place within the heartbeat of the colonial city.[8] The buildings and centers of activity gave the colonialists an opportunity to meet regularly and discuss the ideals that would play an important role in the American Revolution.

Photo: Tim Pierce CC BY-SA 3.0

It was the Taverns of New York City that distinguished the boroughs of New York from the streets of Philadelphia. In the city of New York, there were more taverns than any other type of building besides residential houses.[9] The tavern experience set the stage for the ideals of revolution in New York in the late eighteenth century. In his work Rebels Rising, Carp argued that the Taverns of New York City were the perfect venue for political mobilization among the revolutionaries.[10] It was in taverns that people of all social orders found unity as they discussed politics.[11]

The battle between loyalists and revolutionaries was often fought in the city taverns. However, the loyalists stood little chance of opposing the revolutionaries within the drunken atmosphere in the city taverns. Loyalists were forced to buy drinks for the tavern patrons in order to voice their loyalist opinions.[12] Eventually, the loyalists discovered that buying drinks only led to a more violent and drunken opposition.[13] The Taverns of New York were not the place for loyalist ideals. It could be argued that loyalist opinions increased the revolutionaries’ frustrations with the British. A lethal cocktail of loyalist propaganda served alongside whiskey and ale served as a breeding ground for revolutionary notions.

The Taverns of New York were used to form civic clubs. Carp quoted the Scottish philosopher David Hume to define the psychology of men in the 18th Century. Hume said that men would gravitate to cities to “receive and communicate knowledge.”[14] Hume argued that men would form clubs to feel a sense of increased humanity.[15] The taverns were a breeding ground for clubs and societies. “Tavern clubs provided structure and support for otherwise rowdy bachelors, encouraging their drive for self-improvement and upward mobility as well as the wider public interest.”[16] Carp’s explanation of the colonists’ interests in tavern clubs is significant because it describes the mindset of the revolutionaries. The colonialists’ desire to break the chains of British rule and overcome their inferior status in the eyes of the British defines their organizing within the taverns. The bond between men of all social classes became stronger within the crowded walls of the city taverns.

The most significant role taverns played in the origins of the revolution was the experience of common men and politicians drinking together. The intoxicating effects of alcohol can render an individual more honest and without guard. Carp explained the power of the taverns within the social context of meetings and alcohol consumption: “The ever-present power of drinking in taverns, as a social lubricant and as a source of purposeful disorder, was even more useful for cross-class political mobilization than petitions or newspaper articles.”[17]

The Sons of Liberty would meet at William Howard’s Tavern in New York City to discuss reactionary responses to issues such as the Stamp Act.[18] The Sons of Liberty described their organization as following the codes of the taverns in which unity, masculinity, and civic improvement would come to characterize revolutionary movement and its institutions.”[19] The Taverns were a meeting ground in which Carp described the actions as, “strong word, and strong drink,”[20] as having a great impact on the spreading of revolutionary thought.

While revolution brewed in the Taverns of New York City, the colonialist in the city of Philadelphia were planning their own pursuit of the bells of liberty. Revolutionary thought and activism took place in the courtyards of the Philadelphia State House. [21] The State House was the center of power in Philadelphia.[22] The colonists in Philadelphia would hold demonstrations in the yards of the Philadelphia State House because it was a place in which their voices would be heard before the most important people in the city [23]

The State House courtyard assemblies were staged in an orderly fashion to gain legitimacy for the colonialist grievances against British Law.[24] Because the State House courtyard had an enclosed perimeter, the Assembly was able to control the crowds better than they could have on the open streets of avenues such as Market Street. The proximity of the waterfront to Market Street gave rise to many “violent activities of unbridled popular expression.”[25] The State House Courtyard was a better place for the colonists to air their real grievances. [26] Within the State House were the Supreme Court, assemblymen, and the Governor’s Council. Voicing an opinion in front of the State House made more sense than screaming blindly into the winds of the waterfront on Market Street.

In time, the crowds outside the State Court House began to gain greater recognition. The goal of the crowd was to distinguish the boundaries between the Assembly and its constituents.[27] However, unlike the more enclosed surroundings of New York’s Taverns, the open arena eventually led to disruptions of court activities. In one instance, the crowd began hissing, stamping their feet, and clapping their hands after listening to an Assembly Speaker speak. [28] The Assembly became outraged at the disruption and ordered the State House Doors closed.[29] The closing of the State House Doors began a new battle between the colonists and the members of the Assembly.

The colonists fought to be admitted to the State House to hear the debates and be informed of the current state of affairs. The colonist argued it was their right to hear such matters that were to be deliberated by the “Representatives of the People as may in any wise affect the Interest and Welfare of their Constitutes.”[30] However, the doors were shut in the faces of the colonists. For the next two years a battle brewed between the assembly and the colonist over the right to observe Assembly meetings and to air grievances inside the State House.[31] The Assembly eventually handpicked certain colonialists to observe some meetings.

The few chosen were among a select group of individuals who received privileges based on their close relations to assembly members.[32] Cries of nepotism rang from the voices of the colonists not chosen to represent the will of the people inside the State House. The denial of representation only fueled the anger of the colonist in their outdoor meetings. The colonist began to compare the State Assembly of Philadelphia to the “corrupt House of Commons,” as two “unresponsive legislative bodies, in their minds.”[33] The origins of revolution were taking root in the streets of Philadelphia as the colonists began comparing local governments to the disdain they felt for English rule.

The streets of Philadelphia were filled with protests not only from the city’s inhabitants but also from the colonists in the rural landscape. In 1775, Broadsides were published in Philadelphia, urging all Americans to unite in the cause against unfair taxes levied on colonial merchants and mechanics [34]. The broadsides argued that the colonialists needed to “manifest to the world, their rights as free Americans.”[35] Meetings were scheduled and then postponed by a few days to ensure that all inhabitants of Philadelphia, including those living in the countryside, had time to travel and attend the protest meetings.[36] The broadsides represent a significant difference in the communicating of ideological protests between the streets of Philadelphia and the taverns of New York City The Broadsides were reaching out to the hinterlands and reinforcing the importance of including all colonist regardless of their status or location in the fight against the unfair practices and laws that the British were imposing on the colonies.

Behind every successful man or woman is a spouse or partner fueling their loved one’s success. T.H. Breen argued that the Founding Fathers could not have succeeded in gaining American Liberty without the strength of the common colonist. Benjamin Carp defined that the common colonists were indeed the strength behind the American Revolution. Carp’s argument aligns with the new historiographical analysis that examines the deeper meanings behind historical events. Benjamin Carp defined the role of the revolutionary colonist by distinguishing the differences between revolutionary thought and practice within the cities of New York and Philadelphia.

The most important point that is evident in Carp’s writing is that ideology has no boundaries. The voice of revolution will resonate regardless of cultural or logistical differences. From the sounds of drunken and sobered conversations over whiskey in New York’s taverns, to the screams of the masses in the state yards of Philadelphia, the sounds of Liberty were heard. When tyranny reins its ugly hand upon a common people, the sound of rebellion will echo from the red bricks of the city streets to the rolling rivers of the countryside. Beyond the signing of documents and the delivery of political speeches by the Founding Fathers were the ideals of the common people. The principles and actions the common man screamed for were truly the sounds of the American Revolution.

How The Taverns of New York City Stirred The American Revolution

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Written by Brian Kachejian

Featured Photo: Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Fraunce’s Tavern,” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1901 – 1907. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-db4f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

2nd Photo: By Tim Pierce (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons