Samuel Adams, Massachusetts

Thomas Jefferson, in reflection upon his colleague and fellow patriot Samuel Adams, argued that he was “truly the man of the Revolution” [1]. Adams’s political career would attest to such an impressive claim. Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1722, despite his failed business ventures, Adams proved adept in politics[2]. His political record began in when he was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly where he served as a clerk[3]. His influence on the political environment of the colonies and the colonial opinion of British authority was significant. In the turbulent decades leading to the revolutionary war, Adams proved an effective “political agitator and organizer of rebellion”[4]. In particular, he took part in the drafting of the protest to Parliament calling for the repeal of the Stamp Act of 1765[5], and he was prominent supporter and source of encouragement of the nonimportation efforts in opposition to the Townshend revenue duties of 1767[6]. A member of the zealous patriotic organization the Sons of Liberty, he took leadership in the defiant action of Boston Tea Party of 1773[7]. Another significant contribution to the revolutionary fervor was his role in the organization of the local committees of correspondence, the first of which was formed in Boston in 1772[8]; these committees successfully “spread the spirit of resistance”, and their success spurred the creation of broader intercolonial committees[9]. Described as a “master propagandist and engineer of rebellion”, he certainly encouraged acts of resistance within the colonies, particularly through his contributions to colonial newspapers and pamphlets that succeeded in stirring anti-British sentiment[10]. Adams represented Massachusetts during the Continental Congress of 1774, and acted again as a delegate in the Second Continental Congress[11]. He served in Congress until 1781, whereupon he returned to his native Massachusetts, to take a seat in the State Senate; he served in that body until 1788[12]. Following his service to the national government in the years of the Revolution, he remained an influential political leader. Adams was elected as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1789 until 1793, and was thereafter repeatedly elected to the position of Governor of the state from 1794 until his retirement in 1797[13]. Adams is remembered as an aggressive and passionate proponent of revolution.


[1] Pauline Maier, “Coming to Terms with Samuel Adams,” The American Historical Review 81 (1976): 13.
[2] Ibid., 12.
[3] Maier, “Samuel Adams,” 12.
[4] David M. Kennedy, Lizabeth Cohen and Thomas A. Bailey, The American Pageant: Volume I to1877 (Houghton Mifflin, 2002), 131.
[5]"Samuel Adams," <>, 2006.
[6] Maier, “Samuel Adams,” 13.
[7] "Samuel Adams," <>, 2006.
[8] Kennedy, Cohen and Bailey, American Pageant, 131.
[9] Kennedy, Cohen and Bailey, American Pageant, 131.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Maier, “Samuel Adams,” 13.
[12] Ibid.
[13] "Samuel Adams," <>, 2006.

Sydney Dale-McGrath