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Transcript of Bill Mick Live Hour 3
June 10, 2025 – Dave Does History – “The Sons of Liberty”
Bill Mick
Hour 3 of a Tuesday morning being brought to you by the McPherson Financial Group on Bill Mick Live, Dave Bowman with us throughout the day, Tuesdays at 8:00. It’s always Dave does history and are continuing Liberty 250 series. We’ll see where they’re going to take us momentarily as. Good to have you alone on 92.7 FM, WMMB words, actions and riots. The headline at billmick.com links there to all of Day’s work. The day Bowman show, Dave does history and of course, what the frock is. Dave and Rod bring you that. Every weekend and. If you want to follow WMMB on Instagram, you do it at WMB radio. Dave, today, the Sons of Liberty and focus, and as you were noting, during the top of the hour, break kind of appropriately get into violence today. Since it’s happening everywhere.
Dave Bowman
One of my professors once. Read history is strange. It’s alien and it won’t give us what we would like to have. We want our history of this country to be clean, smooth, direct. We want it to be. You know what? What? We want it to be red white. And blue, but sometimes. It’s not. In Boston in the 1760s. There was a tradition. It was actually a tradition all over the country, but where it was most practiced was in Boston. That was known as Pope Knight POP E Pope Knight. This would happen every November 5th, which of course in England is known as Guy Fawkes Day, but in in Boston and in the northeast and in America it was known as Pope’s Day. You will not be far off if you interpret that as meaning you know Puritans. We’re definitely Protestant, and we’re no fans. Of the Pope. And as a part of this. Celebration, he said questioningly. Effigies of the Pope were carried through the streets of Boston. And then at the end of the night, they would be burned in celebration. Of Pope night and how we. Either overcame or got rid of the Pope or something along those lines.
Bill Mick
If only they’d had Waymo’s then.
Dave Bowman
If only. However, in Boston, this whole thing took on a different aspect. In Boston, this became. There’s really no other way to describe this bill. There were two gangs in Boston. Using really original naming, they were the North Siders and the South Siders. And it came to pass in Boston about 20 years before this would begin to happen that these two gangs would fight. Fight over who got the right to burn the Pope’s effigy? And I don’t mean. They would, you know, yell insults at each other. And maybe, you know, maybe. Throw something. We’re talking about flat out. Violence. People getting smacked, people getting hit? No. But only one person ever died from it. And they didn’t actually die from the directly from the violence they got. Run over by a wagon, but. But this was an. All out brawl. To see which gang would get the right quote, UN quote, to burn the. Effigy of the Pope.
Bill Mick
OK, must have been an important.
Dave Bowman
Event it was an extremely important event because it was seen in Boston as being a sanctioned protest against elites. Oligarchies the rich. As well as the government in London or in Boston, as the case may. Be. This was a. Permitted, if you will. Riot that this is so much like Star Trek. It’s so much like the red hour on Star Trek or the the film where the the, the Purge or whatever. It’s a. It’s a. It’s a violent release of emotion by the by the perceived poor in the city of Boston that allows them to. Express themselves. And yet, at the same time, it’s controlled. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s not complained about. It’s complained about vociferously in the papers, in the broadsides, the rich people, of course, hate this whole thing. And there are those who are uncomfortable with the anti Catholic bias of this whole thing. But. At the end of the day. It’s this riot, this annual Pope day riot. That. Is noticed as things go on. Ebenezer Mackintosh is the gang leader of the South Side gang and he is the most powerful gang members and gang leader and the South Side gang keeps winning. This winning this fight and they keep earning the right to burn the Pope, as it were. As everything is starting to heat up with with Parliament passing their sugar act and their stamp act. There are 9 men in Boston. They are known as the loyal, not. And. They. Have taken notice of Ebenezer Mackintosh, and they have taken notice of all this violence and this sanctioned idea that. We can riot in the streets. And they start to think. What if we could turn that? To our own advantage.
Bill Mick
We find out more as we continue in just a minute here on WMB. So, Dave, if we’d had TV media back then, they would have been telling us these are people just trying to have fun in the street watching carts burn and eventually burning effigy here, right? Well, the burning of the effigy part was that was kind of tradition. You burn the Pope because, I guess popes going to burn in hell.
Dave Bowman
It’s one of the more uncomfortable aspects of. Colonial America. America is that there are two groups of people in the colonies that are just despised by the vast majority of colonials. #1 is the Catholics. Now, Maryland is a Catholic colony, so it doesn’t tend to happen there, but pretty much everywhere else in the country, Pope night is celebrated. Now it’s just in Boston that it becomes very violent. But around the rest of the country, it’s celebrated again. Guy Fawkes Day, Pope day. Same thing. There’s another group of people, we’ll get to them here in just a moment or two. But they are just equally. Detested by the vast majority of of colonials in America. The loyal mine are a group of Boston merchants, tradesmen and the like.
Speaker 3
Who?
Dave Bowman
They object strenuously to what the Parliament has done with the sugar act that we talked about last week and and the. Stamp act as well. And they have. They’re trying to figure out how can we resist this? How can we? Channel our anger. As a colony, as a, as a group of colonies into this. In a way that will. Be effective in a way that will be useful to encouraging the rest of the people. To oppose these acts as well. And as they’re sitting around in their meeting, which is held by the way, under the Liberty Tree in Boston. They hit upon an idea. They’ve watched for years as Ebenezer Mackintosh leads his southsider gang in their annual whipping of the North Siders to burn the Pope’s effigy. And they. They go and get Ebenezer Mackintosh and they start. Talking to him. Hey, look. We need some targeted violence. We need some. Guided protesting, we need you to do some things for us. That will help encourage people to. Resist the Stamp Act in particular, but the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act and King George the third in in in specific we need we need people to get fired up and you seem like just the kind of guy that can do it. And.
Bill Mick
Here, the George Soros of his time.
Dave Bowman
In a in a weird way, I guess and. Ebenezer’s response to this is. Well, I can help you but. The problem is the north side. See, we got this gang turf war thing going on to burn the pulp. Plus it’s August. So you know when we’re not really fired. Up yet? But but? We got to solve this problem first. And so the loyal mind bring in the leaders of the Northside Gang. They sit down with the South side gang. They have this whole. I’m not making this up. They have this whole discussion about things and they decide that. It’s more important. For Boston and the colony of Massachusetts. To protest the Stamp Act and Parliament and King George the third than it is to protest the Pope.
Bill Mick
Got that? It’s more. I’m changing tradition. It’s not easy. No, it’s not. Not.
Dave Bowman
Only do they get these two gangs. To stop fighting. They get these gangs to essentially combine into one gang. And they elect because gangs are apparently democratic, they elect Ebenezer Mackintosh as the leader now of the combined organization. Now we just need a target for what they’re going to do. And that target is going to be provided by the other group that. Colonials hate which, as it turns out. Are the Scottish. The Scottish are hated by the Colonials because the Scottish tend to be loyal to the king, loyal to the crown. And the Scots are the ones taking up the jobs as the stamp collectors for the king and for Parliament. And now they’ve got a gang. Now they’ve got a plan and now they have a target. And all hell is about to break loose.
Bill Mick
We’ll see where that takes us as the March to July 4th, 1776 continues with a look at the Sons of Liberty, this edition of Dave’s history on Bill, Mick Live, we pick it up in moments here on 92.7 FM WWMB.
Speaker 4
This is Dave. Does history on Bill Mick Live?
Bill Mick
They’ve I think you’re changing our perception of these early Americans, these colonials, that maybe we want to see them as more virtuous than not. Then it wasn’t all virtue, all the time, apparently. Well, like I said, history. Strange. It’s alien.
Dave Bowman
It doesn’t always give us what we would. Like to have and that’s. I think that’s an important lesson, and So what? Professor Elliott also adds to that is, So what we. Have to do is approach it calmly. And rationally, and accept that there’s a reality here. The the rights and privileges that we enjoy today. Were earned the hard way. I mean, it didn’t just, you know, it’s not just red, white and blue 1776 singing the songs and and that sort of. Stuff. There was a lot of. A lot of violence that. That came to this and as the. The gangs led by, you know Ebenezer Mackintosh, at the behest of the Loyal 9. Begin to pressure. The. The stamp collectors in particular, now one of the reasons colonials already didn’t like. The Scots, Scottish people. There were a lot of Scottish ministers and King Georges government and there was a lot of. You know, I guess you could call it racial animosity towards the Scottish, but. As the stamp collectors began to take on their jobs, many of them were of Scottish descent or Scottish Scots who came to the United States to take those particular jobs. And so there was this natural targeting. It’s fascinating to look at the political cartoonery of that day, where they are constantly taking shots at the Scottish I mean it’s. It’s not the primary focus of things, but they’re always that little side. Snide remarks and stuff and the cartoons of that day had much more detail than than they do today. And so as these. Stamp collectors begin to take these jobs. This gang. Now, led by Ebenezer, Mackintosh needs a new name Bill. They can’t go by the South Siders anymore because they got the North siders, too, and they sort of evolve into this group called. Dun Dun da the Sons of Liberty. This is actually a word. This is actually a phrase that comes from a speech in Parliament. One of the ministers in Parliament is actually giving a speech about why you should just leave these Americans alone. Stop. Stop messing with them. They are the Sons of Liberty and they just sort of adopt that phrase as their own. And. They begin to pressure and by pressure I mean harass the stamp collectors. Who again, many of them are Scottish. One of them, however, happens not to be the chief tax collector. He’s actually a local colonial American born. His name is Andrew Oilver
And on August 14th, 1765. He resigns. As a stamp collector because instead of the Pope being burned in effigy. The Sons of Liberty, everybody in Boston wakes up 1 morning and they’re hanging on the Liberty Tree is an effigy. Imagine how good this had to be. That was clearly Andrew Oliver, the stamp collector. And they burn his effigy. And he says, you know what? That’s enough. I’m out of here.
Bill Mick
So he sees his effigy hanging there, and he knows it’s him. The rest of the community knows it’s him, Dave, and he says, you know what? I need to look for a new job.
Dave Bowman
Yeah, he decides he doesn’t want to be a stamp collector anymore, so he resigns in a very public letter in a very public. I wouldn’t call it a Washington State Patrol type. Of well, it was it. It kind of is their their. Sort of apology non apology like look I. And I was just. Trying to do my job and. I don’t need this. I don’t. Need this kind of. Approach and as more and more pressure is brought on more and more stamp collectors are are following suit, and so the. Whole stamp act. Is starting to run into. The problem of nobody wants to collect. The taxes, because if they do, they. Get you know.
Bill Mick
Harassed well, they’re the face of that in in the colonies. So it it makes sense.
Dave Bowman
Right. And and with so many of them being Scottish, it it there’s a racial element to this, which it’s a, it’s a weird thing to say because we don’t think of racial discrimination in those terms but but yeah, it was. More than this, though, the Sons of Liberty actually. Take their violence to Governor Hutchinson’s home. The Governor of Massachusetts. They actually ransacked his home while he.
Bill Mick
Is in it.
Dave Bowman
He he is forced to send his family away. The the house is torn up. Part of it is burned. And this might be. A step too far. This this is the kind of thing that if you don’t have the. Right. Spin on it. Publicly, this could be seen as too. Of course, the loyal 9:00, they have a good strategic denial of involvement in this. They have a good way of spinning this and and and basically they turn this into Bill. Speaking of the media, they are the media. So they turn this into well, if the governor wouldn’t put us in the position of having to. You know, defend ourselves against the the, the Crown’s government, and the Crown’s abuses. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened. It’s it’s his fault because she’s trying to enforce their their illegal law. And so they actually turn it around on to him and basically he ends up saying. You know what? I don’t want to. Be the governor of Massachusetts anymore. And he will be eventually replaced by a military governor. When we get to that point, the Sons of Liberty start it, really enjoying this? They really. Take to this role bill they are having in they they are they have become a political movement. They’ve gone from being a gang fighting over who gets to burn the effigy of the Pope.
Speaker 3
Hey.
Dave Bowman
To a political.
Bill Mick
Anime.
Dave Bowman
Now there’s some. There’s some uncomfortable comparisons here in history that I’m not going to go into today, but. You got to keep. Control of this kind of thing. And the loyal 9. Really do a great job of doing that. They have the sons of Sons of Liberty doing things like mock funerals for, for tax stamp collectors and for members of Parliament that oppose them. Eventually, they’re going to expand this. They’re going to expand the Sons of Liberty Group all the way to New York City. And all the way South to Charleston, SC. Or as I refer to the real Charleston. They’re doing a lot of propaganda and public unity. They’ve got meetings and broadsides and publishings. And of course, there’s that tree in Boston. The Liberty tree, where they continue to have their meetings, they continue to have events. They continue to preach their gospel, as it were, to the people of of Massachusetts. The people of the of the colonies. That we have to stand. Up and oppose these things. And eventually, we’re not there yet. But eventually this is going to lead to a. Tea party. It’s the Sons of Liberty that are going to that are going to be actively involved in that. But in the mean time, this loyal 9 continues to guide them and continues to use them to advance this political agenda. And they’re not above using violence to accomplish this. Which is something again, we don’t like to think about. We don’t like to.
Speaker 5
Right.
Dave Bowman
Contemplate. Especially given the news and events of of our modern era. But at the end of the day. It’s the Sons of Liberty, guided by the mysterious hand of the Loyal 9. That are leading us. To the point. Where political violence is going to turn into. Out like rebellion.
Bill Mick
The early flames of liberty being fueled by mob rule. We don’t often look at it that way. Interesting take and we continue with it in moments right here on WMB.
Speaker 4
Call Bill now 321-768-1240.
Bill Mick
The McPherson Financial Group are our sponsor, Dave Bowman taking us through. Dave does history introducing us to the Sons of Liberty, which I guess if we’re going to follow where we’ve been talking this weekend, it was like that close to being the Sons of Anarchy. And maybe there was a little bit of that tied into it. How we pulling this together?
Dave Bowman
Well, it’s a. It’s a fascinating. Look, I guess at the past and the realization that. Everything is not as clean as we. Would like for it to be. But it’s also it’s also. Instructive in the idea that. A lot of conservatives take them in talk radio. We’ll talk about. Cloward Piven and. Stuff like that. None of this is new. There’s nothing new under the Sun. And in many ways. Kind of what we did to England, we we simply overwhelmed them with stuff that they weren’t able to handle. Unless you think that Parliament was united in its hatred of the colonies and its willingness to inflict all this on the college, understand that there were many people in Parliament whose position was, you know, what? Just let them go. It’s better for them to be our friend and former colony than it is to have them as an enemy. It’s gonna cost us a lot of money. If we continue down this path and they were ignored. For a lot of reasons, one of.
Bill Mick
Which how was that received in Parliament? I guess they’d be calling each other traitors across the.
Dave Bowman
Aisle. Well, in many cases, they were the biggest problem they have, of course, is King George the third, who is very stubborn. Very. His. I can’t emphasize enough his mindset that God himself has placed me on this throne.
Speaker 3
To.
Dave Bowman
Rule you and by defying me, you are defying God and therefore I must smite thee. That’s a huge part of this, and in many ways it’s towards the thirds ego alone that that that changes all this. It it’s fascinating to watch the Sons of Liberty. Transform from these Northside South side gangs in Boston, fighting over burning the Pope effigy. To becoming this political movement burning Andrew Oliver and other stamp collectors effigies to becoming almost respectful in the eyes of colonials. And of course, it’s that loyal mind that mysterious group of of merchants and tradesmen in Boston that are guide.
Speaker 3
Doing this.
Dave Bowman
Now these are guys like John Avery, Henry Bass, Thomas Chase. That should be a name you might know if you’ve seen the movies. Steven Cleverley, Thomas Crafts Benjamin, eds. And a few others. As well, but there’s a name here. That seems that. It should belong here, but it’s actually missing. And that, of course, is Sam Adams. Sam Adams. While he’s not technically a member of the loyal mine, he’s. Influential with them and it’s Sam Adams. Yes, the brew master. And cousin of distant cousin of John Adams, who is really organizing what the loyal mine is doing to organize the Sons of Liberty. He’s not just some pub crawling agitator. He’s not. Some. You know lunatic who’s out there just screaming and burning things. He’s a very strategic leader who doesn’t get enough credit. I I don’t think in our. History. He is building coalitions not just with the Sons of Liberty, but he’s also doing it in the churches. He’s doing it in the print shops. He’s doing it with the tradesmen. As they produce built artwork and. Dare I say propaganda? That people can display in their houses and that sort of thing. He’s building that public unit. And encouraging the the the loyal mind to guide the Sons of Liberty in a way that is. Designed. To continue to push the British really to the edge and it’s that leadership that I think makes Sam Adams one of the most important characters in our history. Again, I don’t think he gets the credit that he deserves, he. Does get some credit? For it. But what he effectively does. Is causes the Sons of Liberty. To literally become a de facto. Government, certainly in Massachusetts, certainly in Boston. They essentially. Forbid the British from troops from patrolling. They punish the Loyalists, the people that aren’t, you know, aren’t going along with what they want. They enforce boycotts against British goods. And they are really. The muscle. For the ideas of liberty that Sam Adams and the loyal mind and others are pushing. This is going to be. It’s going to become more intense. You’d think the British again, you’d think with all the lessons that they’ve learned. That they’d start going. Well, is it really worth it? I mean, #1, these 13 colleagues are not our chief trading partner. They’re just not the Caribbean gets us much more money, much more con. We we got a better deal down there. Canada is great for. Us. Maybe we should just let these 13 colleges go their own way. Just do their own thing. They’ll come back begging to us. For help, but no. They become more intransigent, which might also be a lesson about the use of violence and the use of of of mob tactics. But. They don’t learn. And the British are going to continue to tighten the screws on the colonies. They’re going to continue to push back. They’re going to continue to push them in directions. That are going to lead to more violence and more things like tarring and feathering. This is actually going to happen. And eventually. Things are really going to start blowing up and when they do. People are going to die in the streets. People are going to die on the battlefield. But it’s the Sons of Liberty. Guided by the loyal mind, guided by Sam App. That are really going to change the political structure of the colonies from just anger. To resistance. To revolution.
Bill Mick
And we pick it up in just a minute. You won’t in. It’s 321-768-1240 here on W UMB. You know, Dave, as I consider all of this number one, they got rival gangs to come together #2 they had an element of control over the gang behavior and acknowledging or or reaching into the gangs violent propensity when it benefited the cause. But it sounds like they were able to moderate. As necessary to get the fervor of the people start up over this liberty idea.
Dave Bowman
Well, they moderate it and then they control it and that I I think that’s the more remarkable thing and that’s, you know, when you compare things to today, you have this Antifa, you have this anti icing. Do the Democrats really control that? Does the left really control that? And if what’s? Their end goal. Here you have a different situation where you have an idea of what the end goal is and where where we’re trying to get get to. And you have this idea that if we can get there as a group. Then perhaps things will be better for everybody, and you won’t you? You’ll have the opportunities that you don’t have now. And maybe that had some influence.
Bill Mick
It could be to me as uniting the two gangs that start with because if they hadn’t done that, that may not have come together.
Dave Bowman
At all. If they hadn’t done that, you have to wonder, would there ever been a revolution? Would there have been that catalyst to drive those? So it raises questions. Is violent protest ever justified? In these situations. Were the Sons of Liberty, champions of American rights, or? Where they just practitioners of mob rule. It it they’re they’re questions that again, they’re uncomfortable questions that we don’t necessarily like. And because history went the way that it did. We can look at them positively and we can look at them with with some, you know, pride in this whole map. And we can say, well, OK, this worked out well. But what if it had?
Bill Mick
And that is an interesting question. Speaking of, let’s get to the phones line. One, you’re up on Bill McLeish. Good morning.
Speaker 3
Bill won’t cooking like they have. Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to see if you just give me a.
Bill Mick
Yeah, well.
Speaker 3
At some point, when you can tell me or remind me you Guy Hawks, is our guy walks it. Thanks. That’s all I wanted to know.
Bill Mick
Thank you, Walt. Dave, you mentioned him at the start, he was. A.
Dave Bowman
Guy Fox is a. Anti Guy Fawkes is the Catholic. Remember that in England you had the Catholics and the prize you had that whole thing with Elizabeth and Henry the eighth and all this guy Fox was one of the people that tried to overthrow the king. He was Catholic. They tried to blow up Parliament, they got caught, he. Got hung and. He’s not seen so much. In, in religious terms, he’s seen as a resistance to the government. That’s why you. Have the guy fox mask. And stuff like that. It’s he’s seen as anti government.
Bill Mick
He’s the libertarians poster child.
Dave Bowman
In many ways, yeah, it’s it’s a complicated story that.
Bill Mick
I don’t have the baby Jesus there.
Dave Bowman
You go. I have time to get into the whole.
Bill Mick
I don’t.
Dave Bowman
Story with Guy Fawkes but.
Bill Mick
Ohh I that I turned, I popped my paper on the board and I turned.
Dave Bowman
Your mic off. Go ahead, Dave. All I said was I we we don’t have time to cover Guy Fawkes, but. But in America, that became the Pope night. It became anti Catholic protests.
Speaker
Umm.
Dave Bowman
It it’s just remarkable that you have this thing in Boston again. It’s so much like Star Trek and the Red Hour bill. I mean, it’s it’s really it’s. Let’s let them just riot and tear things up for for a bit and then that’ll let them blow off some steam and. Everything will be alright. And that’s the beginning of the.
Bill Mick
Back to the phones. Good morning. You’re next on Bill. Mick live. What do you? I can hear.
Speaker 5
I’m thinking it’s a great discussion. I thinking fact and I have talked this for some time now that the resistance here in America that we’ve been observing over the last couple of years 3-4 or five years is is, is the American people ignoring? The the legacy Republican Party, and ignoring the Democrats altogether and putting President Trump into office, I think what we’re seeing here with this administration is the resistance.
Bill Mick
Interesting point, Mario and Dave, I know the call was scratchy, really hard, hard to hear there. He’s comparing what happened in the 2024 election with this in that the resistance now is coming from the Republican Party and putting Donald Trump in the position that he’s in today again.
Dave Bowman
Yeah, it’s I. It was very. I couldn’t understand what he was saying on this end. There’s some elements to who’s resisting what? And I guess you could make those arguments till you’re. Blue in the face, but. It’s pretty clear that the Sons of Liberty. Guided by the Loyal 9, guided by Sam Adams. We’re conducting violent resistance to King George into Parliament and. It’s it’s remarkable that they were able to control that to the point that they were able to control it. And of course it’s good for us that they were. And we can celebrate that today and proudly proclaim ourselves as Sons of Liberty. It’s just important that we remember how it got start.
Bill Mick
Very true, Dave. Where we heading next?
Dave Bowman
Week next week parliaments going to tighten those screws, like we talked about and the Sons of Liberty are gonna react violently.
Bill Mick
Under direction, of course, but maybe not. Dave, always an interesting hour and always good to have you along for the entirety of our Tuesday here on Bill make live. Thanks for making the effort and getting up early for us.
Dave Bowman
Not a problem. We’ll see you next.
DAVE DOES HISTORY 