Were the sons of liberty patriots or loyalists?

Answer 1

Depends on your point of view. Treason is defined as acting against the king which is exactly what they did. But since they won the war for American independence we consider them as patriots. The winners decide who is a traitor and who is a patriot. The founding fathers were, very much so, patriots. They all had ideas of independence and liberty, which are the grounds of the American government. Some were judges and some lieutenant colonels. So this proves that they were strongly patriotic.

AnswerDepends on you're point of view. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but the short answer is that there are two ways of looking at this:

If you believe that colonies had the right to secede from the British Empire, and that the attempt by George III to keep them in the Empire against their will was illegitimate and treasonous, then the rebels (including the founding fathers) were British/American patriots fighting to defend the rights of Englishmen and the sovereignty of the Empire's colonies.

If you believe that the colonies did not have the right to secede from the British Empire, then the rebels were traitors, and George III was a hero like Abraham Lincoln, who tried, but unlike Lincoln failed, to save the Empire.

This is rather like asking weather the rebels in the Civil War were traitors or patriots.

As I said tough, this is a bit of an oversimplification. There are other viewpoints, for example one could support the rebels solely on the basis of American nationalism. There were also other issues then just secession, probably the most proponent being weather Parliament was the legislature of only Britain (and maybe Ireland) itself, or the whole empire. In fact, at first the rebels weren't even fighting to secede from the Empire; the Revolution started in 1775 not 1776. At first they were fighting to end what they saw as Parliament's (mostly) illegitimate rule over the colonies, while remaining part of the Empire.

Answer 2

The men we call patriots would have been called traitors if England had won the war.

So, patriots are from the USA, and traitors are from England. :]

Answer 3

Patriots