Golden Hill, Battle of
Golden Hill, Battle of
GOLDEN HILL, BATTLE OF. 17 January 1770. Beginning in January 1766, the New York assembly resisted providing the funds required under the terms of the Quartering Act (15 May 1765) to house regular troops in the colony, principally in New York City. This opposition led the imperial government to threaten to suspend the assembly until it complied with the requisition, and ultimately to its being prorogued in December 1766. When a new assembly finally voted in December 1769 to appropriate money to house the troops, Alexander McDougall, a leader of the New York Sons of Liberty, published a broadside that began, "To the Betrayed Inhabitants." Friction between the regular troops and inhabitants of New York City finally led to a riot on Golden Hill. The local Sons of Liberty objected when some off-duty soldiers sawed down a liberty pole. When three thousand Sons and their supporters put up a new one, thirty or forty off-duty soldiers armed with bayonets fought citizens armed with swords and clubs. Casualties occurred on both sides over the course of the next two days in what were the most serious civil-military disturbances outside of Boston to that time.
SEE ALSO Liberty Trees and Poles; McDougall, Alexander; New York Assembly Suspended; Quartering Acts.
revised by Harold E. Selesky