Committees of Safety

Committees of Safety, executive bodies established by towns and legislatures in colonial America, just before the American Revolution, to direct the struggle against British rule. As the conflict between the colonies and Great Britain deepened, many colonial towns created local Committees of Correspondence, Committees of Inspection, and Committees of Safety. The Committees of Inspection were charged with the task of checking and reporting violations of the boycott of British trade initiated by the First Continental Congress. The Committees of Safety became the executive bodies in what constituted, in effect, a new governmental structure, corresponding on a local scale to the Continental Congress. One of their tasks was supplying the Continental Army with men and equipment.

The first Committee of Safety appointed by a colonial legislature was probably that established in October 1774, by the first Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, to function as a general executive body for the entire colony.

The decision of the Committee of Safety established by the second Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in February 1775, to occupy Charlestown and Dorchester Heights, led to the Battle of Bunker Hill. The New York Committee of Safety in the same year seized British arms and stores and virtually compelled the British to evacuate that city. When state constitutions were adopted, these committees were replaced by constitutional bodies, but many functioned unofficially during the American Revolution.