Of all of the interesting headgear associated with the American Revolution, one of the simplest forms, so simple in fact that no regular Continental units ever adopted it as an official hat, was the "Liberty Cap." During the Revolution this was generally a wool or cotton cap with the word Liberty or Liberty or Death embroidered across its front in an opposing color. A few battalion infantry and numerous light infantry units wore miters with this legend emblazoned across their fronts (Congress being another legend), light infantry miters sometimes saying Liberty or with a skull and cross bones replacing Death, the words requiring more room than the shorter light infantry miter could afford, the skull and crossbones being more easily squeezed into the space.
But the cloth Liberty Cap has a longer and even more honorable history than these Continental miters ( covered as they are with glory), a history beginning some 3000 years ago as a symbol of freedom from slavery. It is not a coincidence that red stocking caps were in fashion among yeomen during the 18th century, with Sam Adams, the historical minded patriot leader, reviving knowledge of the ancient red felt freedman's cap to popularize the Liberty Cap as a symbol of resistance to tyranny.
In what is now Turkey, there once existed the ancient nation of Phrygia. Around about 800 B.C., Pbrygia was conquered by Lydia, a country allied to the Greek cities that then dotted Asia Minor. Conquered Phrygia then became a chief source of slaves for the city-states of Greece. Apparently a Phrygian slave normally went bare-headed, but when he in some way won his freedom, he w o u l d proudly don the red felt cap of his homeland to signify that he was now a free, independent Phrygian once more.
When the Greeks were in turn conquered by the Romans, the Romans, admirers of Greek culture, adopted numerous Greek customs and laws. Among these was the tradition of the Phrygian cap, which had spread beyond the Phrygians to become the badge of liberty for freedmen of any nationality. The conical hat passed into Roman law, being made a part of the ceremony whereby a slave was granted his freedom. Called the act of manumission (from the Latin manus, "hand," and mittere, to let go"), when the slave knelt at the magistrate's feet, the cap on his head, he was tapped with a rod and declared a free man.
The story of the ancient Phrygian cap does not end there, but in fact later became an emblem of revolt, with the slaves claiming their own freedom at no one's behest. Called a pileus by the Romans, the cap became a symbol that was used against the Roman Empire. During times of unrest and upheaval, armies marching on Rome would put the pile-us on the points of their spears to signify to the slaves that freedom was theirs if they would abandon their masters and join the ranks of the insurgents.
From the spear-supported pileus came the idea of the Liberty Pole. Preceding the Liberty Pole was the Liberty Tree, the first one being an elm planted by the Puritans of Boston in 1646. The firey Sam Adams designated it as a Liberty Tree after it had been used on August 14, 1765, by the Sons of Liberty, to hang an effigy of Lord Brute, author of the Stamp Act, and of Andrew Oliver, the royal government's Boston distributor of the hated stamps. The tree thereafter became a rallying point of the Sons of Liberty until the patriots of Boston were expelled or cowed by the Redcoat garrison after Lexington and Concord. Evacuating Boston under the threat of the guns placed on Dorchester Heights (where General Howe was loathe to risk another Bunker Hill), the British spiteful1y cut down the old liberty elm as they left.
In other towns throughout the thirteen colonies, community leaders would fly a flag, often emblazoned with the word Liberty or Union, usually a red flag with the Union Jack as the canton, the "Cromwell flag" from the reign of Queen Anne, from the highest tree near the village green. The patriots of Taunton, Massachusetts, who emblazoned Liberty and Union on their Cromwell flag, immortalized it in a ballad containing the line, "The red flag of Taunton, that waves o're the green." In Indian-scarred Deerfield, Massachusetts, the Liberty Flag still waves (though no doubt a replica) from a flagpole, a Cromwell flag emblazoned with the legend Union.
When the Boston Port Bill was passed, whereby George III sought to force the Bostonians to recompense the East India Company for the tea dumped into the harbor during the famous "Boston Tea Party," Whig communities throughout the land sprang to the aid of blockaded Boston. The people of Farmington, Connecticut, sent four hundred bushels of rye and Indian corn. When the news of the Port Bill reached Farmington, a handbill was circulated, which read
“To pass through the fire at six o’clock this evening, in honor to the immortal goddess of Liberty, the late infamous Act of the British Parliament for further distressing the American Colonies, the place of execution will be the public parade, where all Sons of Liberty are desired to attend. ”
A thousand patriots crowded around the village green and cheered lustily as a copy of the Boston Port Bill was burned. They cheered again as a 45-foot tall Liberty Pole was erected into the evening sky, a bright red pileus at its top - the Liberty Cap.
The Farmington pole may have had a Liberty Flag attached to it as well, and by 1776 such flags were being carried into battle, minus the Union Jack canton, a pine tree (in New England especially) replacing the Union Jack. This flag with the red field became known as the "Continental flag," since it came from not one state but several.
Liberty trees and Phrygian caps quickly became devices used on new-made battle flags, as evidenced by the so-called "White Plains Flag," which Hessian troops claimed they captured from the Americans on August 27, 1776, during the Battle of Long Island. It is called the White Plains Flag because there is some dispute as to where the patriots actually lost it, another view being that it was taken during the Battle of White Plains, October 28, another United States defeat in the fight for New York. The White Plains Flag is emblazoned with the words Liberty or Death over a crossed sword and staff, the staff (spear?) supporting a light blue pileus (blue, because the field is red.) The Germans who captured it themselves not long after came to grief, being taken prisoner in the Battle of Trenton on December 26, their commander, Colonel Rall, being mortally wounded.
Following the American Revolution, the famous pamphleteer Thomas Paine traveled to France. A tireless Revolutionary and himself English-born, he also slipped into England and tried to stir up rebellion there. But he was forced to flee, escaping to France one step ahead of the police.
In France he was warmly welcomed, the monarchy having been overthrown there, and was made a Member of the French Assembly (alas, his welcome was not to last, and he was jailed during the Terror, narrowly avoiding the guillotine). Paine found that Sam Adam's revival of the pileus had preceded him, being adopted by the republican French as the bonnet rouge.
The unstable French Republic was followed by the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte, who, combining the ideals and symbols of the Revolution with his own dictatorial authority, fashioned the French army into a conquering power. Thus he was able to overthrow various ancient thrones in Europe, deposing, among them, the Spanish King. In this manner, the Phrygian cap returned as a symbol of liberty to the Western Hemisphere, for the nationalists of Latin America seized the opportunity granted by Spain's prostration to declare independence for their own countries. Thus today we find Phrygian caps used as devices on various South and Central American national flags, which are also usually tricolors inspired by the tricolor of Revolutionary France.
Both the Liberty Cap and the Liberty Pole are featured on these Latin American banners, though the "pole" probably represents the cap-hung spear of Roman times. The national ensigns of Columbia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Paraguay, and Argentina's Presidential Standard all feature Liberty Caps and Liberty "Poles." It is a sad irony that some of these countries are today dictatorships from which liberty hath flown, strong gun control laws being central features of the tyrannic structures of these dictatorships.
In the meanwhile, "back at the ranch," so to speak, in the United States today the Liberty Cap is not forgotten. In the Old Bay State, Massachusetts, where it all began "by the rude bridge that arched the flood," the very cradle of the Revolution, the Liberty Cap is enjoying an ardent revival. Spreading throughout New England, this is due for the most part to one man, V. Leslie Hebert of Weymouth, Massachusetts. A lifelong arborist, Mr. Hebert served as Weymouth's tree warden until his retirement in 1967, upon which he began his career as New England's only professional Liberty Pole Raiser. Conducting a campaign to interest the public in Liberty Trees and Boston's Liberty Tree in particular, Mr. Hebert in 1964 succeeded in inducing Governor Endicott Peabody to sign a Proclamation making August 14 the Commonwealth's Liberty Tree Day.
With the arrival of the Bicentennial, an increasing number of towns are organizing Annual Liberty Pole Days replete with ceremony and celebration. When he participates in these ceremonies, Mr. Hebert, attired in 18th century regalia, is the Grand Marshal of the event, leading a procession of costumed Liberty Boys and patriotic ladies to the town common. Following the Grand Marshal is a lady carrying a small black coffin labeled Liberty, followed in turn by men trundling the Liberty Pole, its butt end laid in a special two-wheeled cart.
When the Liberty Pole arrives at the green, fifers, and drummers playing a lively tune, the music stops and the ceremony begins. The coffin is placed on the grass and a handful of dirt is thrown on it to symbolically "bury" it. "Liberty is dead, Liberty is dead!" goes up the cry.
Then, in defiance of tyranny, staunch Minutemen raise the Liberty Pole and fix it in place. A dollar has been fixed to the top of the pole and this will be the reward for any robust youth who can shinny up to the top to place the Liberty Cap there. However, before this can be done, a detachment of redcoats appears. They advance on the "rebellious" pole with the intent of cutting it down. "Violence" breaks out as the Liberty Boys defend the pole, bayonets and musket butts being pitted against wooden clubs. But the patriots prove too numerous for the Lobsterbacks, and they withdraw to the cheers and catcalling of the crowd.
The ceremony resumes, with numerous boys trying and failing to shinny up the pole, until one finally succeeds amid the applause and huzzaing of the throng. Mr. Hebert makes a short oration, a Minuteman detachment fires a musket volley, the band strikes up, and the ceremony is over.
Says Mr. Hebert ( Yankee magazine, October 1975)
“The liberty cap is a tradition almost 3000 years old . . . . and the liberty pole is a way of displaying that symbol of free men. It’s important that somebody remembers.”
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