Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams

Introduction

During the decade from 1765 to 1775, when Boston was at the center of the resistance movement (1764-75) against British rule, Samuel Adams was the town's most important political leader. By 1776 he had gained a transatlantic reputation as a mastermind of the rebellion. Born in Boston on September 27, 1722, Adams was the son of a merchant and brewer. He graduated from Harvard College in 1740. Adams endeavored, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a brewer and newspaper publisher. Between 1756 and 1765 Adams served as a tax collector in Boston. He proved no more successful at collecting taxes than he had at publishing or brewing as the Boston Town Meeting found him to be more than £10,000 in arrears in his collections, partly in sympathy for financially distressed townsmen.

Despite, or perhaps because of, his laxness as a tax collector, Adams was elected to the Massachusetts assembly, the Great and General Court in 1765. He served as the assembly's clerk until 1780. In this capacity Adams played a prominent role in coordinating the assembly's opposition to British taxation from 1765 to 1775. Adams was also active in several organizations including the Loyal Nine, the North End Caucus and, most importantly, the Sons of Liberty. He also served as the chair of the Boston Town Meeting. Through his participation in these groups, Adams emerged as the most important popular political leader in Boston prior to the Revolutionary War (1775-83). He was a vocal critic of British taxation and contended that Parliament, along with a few Americans loyal to the king, sought to enslave the colonists and take away their liberties. Adams was a very effective political leader, protest organizer, and propagandist, writing newspaper articles that were critical of the British taxation policies. He also organized numerous popular demonstrations and protests. For example, he led the successful movement to demand the removal of British troops from Boston after the Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770). In 1772 he created the Boston committee of correspondence, helped to coordinate anti-British resistance throughout Massachusetts and, eventually, across the colonies. He chaired the extralegal meetings which preceded the Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773). In 1774, through the Committee of Correspondence he led the call for the First Continental Congress to coordinate resistance to the Coercive Acts (1774). During the decade between the Stamp Act (1765) and the outbreak of war at Lexington (April 19, 1775), Adams was at the forefront of the revolutionary movement in Massachusetts and North America. Throughout this effort, Adams sought to balance reasoned principle with emotional crowd politics.

Discussion

In the fall of 1765, Adams was elected to the lower house of the colonial legislature where he was active in promoting the seating of other radicals and expanding revolutionary contacts with other colonial legislatures. Adams never openly advocated violence, but his opposition to the British was so strong that many others became violent. His writings are generally credited with creating a climate in which the Boston Massacre ...