Samuel Adams
(1722-1803)Samuel Adams was born on September 27, 1722.
He was one of the leaders of resistance to British policy in Massachusetts before the
American Revolution. He was a great American Patriot. His forceful writings won many
converts for revolutionary action.. |
Adams was born in Boston
on September 27, 1722. He was educated at Harvard and left there in 1740. He was
successively a law student, a clerk in a countinghouse, and a merchant. His business as a
merchant failed, so he became a partner with his father in a brewery. After the death of
his father the brewery also failed. During all these enterprises he was an active
participant in Boston political circles. In 1756 he was elected tax collector of Boston.
He held this position for eight years. He was outspoken and critical of the British rule
and tax policies. From Boston he ascended the political ladder to the leglislative duties
of Massachusetts. While there he assumed a leadership of the movement in Massachusetts
that advocated independence from Great Britain.
Adams influenced every aspect of the prerevolutionary struggle against British rule. He
promoted the formation of the Boston chapter of the Sons of Liberty. He led the fight
against the Townshend Acts, headed the demonstrations that led to the Boston Massacre, and
directed the Boston Tea Party. He acquired a reputation throughout all the colonies
through these activities and through his writings. Many of his writings, chiefly political
pamphlets, were widely circulated and read. He was a proponent of the natural rights of
man. He was numbered among those Americans who challenged the authority of the British
Parliament and championed rebellion. His forceful writings for the Gazette, a Boston
newspaper, won many converts for the radical cause and generally deepened the mood for
revolutionary action.
As a delegate to the First Continental Congress, he soon became the leader of the radical
faction that demanded strong measures against Great Britain. Before adjourning, the
Congress called for a boycott of British goods and recommended the use of force in
resisting taxes that had been imposed by the government in London. Adams was a delegate to
the Second Continental Congress, which convened at Philadelphia in May 1775, and he
subsequently signed the Declaration of Independence. He remained a member of the
Continental Congress until its dissolution in 1781. He was lieutenant governor of
Massachusetts from 1789 to 1793 and governor from 1794 to 1797. He died in Boston on
October 2, 1803.
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