These instances of Boston street violence imply too strongly that Bostonians had a natural, adversarial relationship with British imperial authority. In some respects, their anger was directed at authority in general, but normally their sentiments, motivations, and actions were local in focus and nature. In Boston, for instance, a rivalry developed between North and South, with frequent episodes of gang warfare and street violence between the two groups. Without a doubt, the focus of the Boston lower class was local, not across the Atlantic. It was only when British imperial authority directly inserted itself into local affairs that it became the recipient of lower-class frustration.
In cities, towns and villages across America, this was no different. Working-class and lower-class citizens (usually acting in groups, and sometimes even as mobs) harassed local merchants and shopkeepers over inflated prices or unethical business practices, kept people with diseases (such as smallpox) quarantined or out of town altogether, and tore down houses of ill repute. In many cases, they often policed their own communities to keep crime minimal and the streets safe. In a lot of ways, citizens of little economic means and even less education were more active and engaged in community affairs during the 18th century than is the case today. Unfortunately for those in authority and even for those protesting authority in more "moderate" or "civil" ways, when the lower classes were engaged in community affairs, the nature of their involvement was often unpredictable and usually driven by emotion.
Money was, for the lower classes, a highly emotional issue. Obviously, taxation was as well. And when Parliament leveled the Stamp Tax on North America, a measure that would affect colonial life in virtually every respect, it added a new electrical charge to lower-class (not to mention middle- and upper-class) frustration and erected a lightning rod to catch all its fury.
Lightning struck in Boston on August 14, 1765. Bostonians awoke that morning to an effigy of Andrew Oliver, recently named stamp commissioner of Boston, dangling from the branch of an elm tree near Boylston Market. Ominously written on Oliver's effigy were the words: "What greater joy did New England see, than a stampman hanging on a tree." Next to Oliver's representation was a boot, with a figure of the devil protruding forth, holding a copy of the Stamp Act. Unmistakably, this was a reference to Lord Bute, the controversial tutor of King George III and the man many Americans held personally responsible for Britain's shift in attitude toward the colonies.
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