An answer, in great part, lies in the violence and vigilante action carried on by the patriots against the government and its supporters! Though most Americans today are familiar with the Boston Tea Party, few know much about the secret organization that conducted it, the Sons of Liberty. Led by Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Dr. Warren ("the greatest incendiary of them all"), and Paul Revere,
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they met in secret, dressed in disguises, and carried out vigilante actions under the cover of darkness. This revolutionary Ku Klux Klan was as much dreaded by "the friends of government" as its ideological offspring, the Klan, ever was by unruly Blacks.
The Sons of Liberty and other similar groups were responsible, during the course of the conflict for independence, for causing tens of thousands of Loyalist to flee the country (the Klan was usually satisfied with merely running undesirables out of the county).