Adams, Samuel

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Samuel Adams

Born September 27, 1722
Boston, Massachusetts
Died October 2, 1803
Boston, Massachusetts

Political leader, governor of Massachusetts, brewer, publisher

Samuel Adams was a leading organizer of the independence movement in Massachusetts and the other American colonies that culminated in the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States of America. Though he was an outstanding writer, speaker, and planner, he kept himself so far in the background that historians have found it difficult to determine the total scope of his contributions to the birth of the nation.

Samuel Adams was the son of a generous beer brewer, also named Samuel, and Mary Fifield Adams, his religious wife. Mary Adams passed her Puritan beliefs on to her three children—Samuel, his older sister Mary, and younger brother Joseph. A well-mannered, heavyset boy, Samuel Adams had dark blue-gray eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a large head. At the Boston Latin School, he learned to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. Throughout his life his friends and family called him Samuel; only strangers and people who were making fun of him referred to him as "Sam."

Adams's dislike for the British government began in his childhood, when England ruled the colonies. The Adams's house was the meeting place of a group called the Caucus Club. The members of the Caucus Club sought more political power for the colonists, and young Adams was encouraged to take part in its discussions.

In 1736 Samuel Adams entered what is now Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1741, when Adams was eighteen, British-appointed governor John Belcher declared illegal the land bank founded by the elder Samuel. The Adams family lost all their money, and Adams had to take a job as a waiter to pay his way through college. Adams did not take kindly to this injustice, and this strengthened his belief that the governor held too much power over the colonists.

Marries, becomes tax collector

Adams earned a Master of Arts degree in 1743, at age twenty-one, and went on to an unsuccessful career in the field of accounting. The friend of his father who had employed young Samuel told the older man that his son seemed to take no interest in the business. Then Samuel's father gave him a large sum of money to start a new business. But the young man lent half of it to a friend, never asking to be repaid, and frittered away the rest. Samuel gained a reputation for being unable to make or hold on to money. He preferred to spend his time discussing how America must become independent of England.

Accounts of the time describe Adams as about five feet six inches tall, with a large head, dark eyes, and a musical voice. Adams had no interest in fashion and wore shabby clothing and shoes. His real interests lay in politics. In 1747 Adams and several friends began the Whipping Post Club, a political organization that published a newspaper, The Public Advertiser, written largely by Adams. Its self-proclaimed purpose was to "defend the rights… of working people." Samuel sharpened his skills as a writer and became well known as a defender of colonial rights.

In 1748 Adams's father died, and he became responsible for taking care of his mother and the family brewing business. Samuel Adams married his first wife, Elizabeth Checkley, in 1749. They had six children, but only young Samuel and Hannah survived to adulthood. Over the years, Adams's neglect of the family's once-successful brewing business led to its decline. The family was happy despite being rather poor.

Adams was appointed Boston commissioner of garbage collection in 1753, and in 1756 was elected one of five tax collectors for the city. Though he did a poor job demanding unpaid taxes, the popular Adams was reelected and held the post of tax collector for the eight years that followed.

Remarries, begins patriotic work

In 1757 Elizabeth Adams died, a few weeks after giving birth to a baby that died at birth. The following year Adams nearly lost the house he had inherited from his father because he was unable to pay the debts he had also inherited.

In 1764 Adams married Elizabeth "Betsy" Wells, the daughter of a family friend. Betsy loved her kind but financially unsuccessful husband. Sometimes she had to accept food and secondhand clothing from concerned neighbors. Though Adams was not financially savvy, he was very knowledgeable when it came to politics. By 1765 Adams had become known as a speaker who stirred up political resistance to England through speeches in taverns and at informal meetings around Boston.

Colonists oppose Stamp Act

During the 1760s money conflicts arose between England and the American colonists. From 1754 to 1763 American colonists had aided England in the French and Indian War, in which France and its Indian allies fought against England over who would control North America. After England won the war in 1763, its flag flew over Canada and a vast area east of the Mississippi River. England was faced with a huge war debt, however, and the British believed that the colonists should help to pay for the war.

In March 1765 the British government passed the Stamp Act, which required colonists to buy stamps and place them on most paper documents and products. The shocked colonists thought that England should be grateful to them for helping win the war. Instead, Americans were being punished with taxes. Later that year Adams was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. To protest the Stamp Act, he began a successful campaign to halt the sale of any British-made goods in Massachusetts. In time the campaign spread to the other colonies. Adams and his supporters hoped that big money losses would turn British merchants against their own government.

Adams works to end the Stamp Act

Adams went around Boston persuading working people to join the Sons of Liberty, an organization he had founded to fight for American rights. The group, which eventually numbered three hundred, sometimes engaged in disruptive activities that the British considered illegal. For that reason, Adams stayed away from the group's public gatherings, although everyone in Boston knew he was its head. Adams preferred to stay in the background, writing articles and organizing demonstrations.

In May 1766 word reached Boston that the Stamp Act had been repealed by the British at the urging of British merchants whose businesses had been suffering. All of Boston celebrated what would prove to be a short-lived victory.

Increases efforts to defy British

In 1767 the British placed new taxes on lead, glass, paint, paper, and tea, items widely used in the colonies. Adams spoke out against "taxation without representation." He said that Parliament, England's law-making body, had no right to tax Americans because the colonists had no representation in Parliament. Massachusetts's law-making body then adopted the Massachusetts Circular Letter, an appeal for the colonies to oppose all new taxes. Copies were sent to all the colonies. A wave of sometimes-violent protests soon broke out throughout the land, especially in Boston.

British officials in America demanded that England send troops to help keep the peace. In the summer of 1768, redcoats (British soldiers, who wore red uniform coats) arrived in Boston. When the citizens of Boston refused to find places to house them, they marched to Boston Common, the popular public park, and set up their tents. By several months later, the number of redcoats had swelled to three thousand, quite a large number in a town of sixteen thousand people. Settled in for the winter, they had very little to do but hang about. Boston residents found their presence increasingly annoying and tensions continued to rise.

In 1768 Adams started a newspaper, the Journal of Events, which voiced his opposition to British rule. Throughout his lifetime, Adams wrote letters to newspapers, using a variety of pen names. He wrote stories about redcoats beating up "innocent" citizens and attacking young women. Although most Boston readers knew many of his stories were overstated, they were reprinted throughout the colonies, and many people outside Boston accepted them as truth.

Publicizes Boston Massacre, loses popularity

On March 5, 1770, a violent encounter took place between a group of Boston men and boys and some British soldiers, resulting in the death of five patriots and the wounding of others. Bostonians demanded that the eight redcoats be placed on trial. Adams surprised his supporters by arranging to have his cousin, John Adams see entry, and Josiah Quincy, two well-respected American lawyers, defend the British soldiers in court.

Why did he do this? Some people believe that he thought death sentences for these British soldiers were a certainty, but his gesture would show England that Bostonians could be just and fair-minded people. In the end, none of the British soldiers was found guilty of murder. Six were found not guilty, and two were found guilty of manslaughter (killing of a human being without any bad intent), a charge less than murder, and were punished by being branded on their thumbs. In his diaries, John Adams wrote of his second cousin, Samuel: "He is a Man of stedfast Integrity, exquisite Humanity, genteel [learning],… engaging manners, reason as well as professed [devotion to religion], and a universal good character."

Adams named the bloody battle between the British soldiers and the patriots the "Boston Massacre" and publicized the story. He and a group of townspeople succeeded in their demands that the British-appointed governor, Thomas Hutchinson, order all British soldiers out of Boston.

On April 12, 1770, the British Parliament did away with all colonial taxes except the tax on tea. Within a few years, even Boston voted to end the boycott of most British goods, except tea. A boycott is a refusal to buy, sell, or use certain products from a particular person, company, or country, usually for a political reason. Adams continued to send letters to newspapers calling for American independence. Some people, who now felt secure from further unfair treatment by the British, began calling him and his ideas "old-fashioned."

Nonetheless, Adams kept working. At his request, the town of Boston appointed a Committee of Correspondence to state the rights of the colonists and publicize them throughout the colonies. In a short time, many such letter-writing networks were set up, and the move toward colonial unity advanced.

Tax rebellion continues

Years went by, and the colonists continued to boycott British tea. In 1773, with a large quantity of unsold tea piling up, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act. It cut the price of British tea for Americans in half, while still keeping a tax on tea. The British believed wrongly that having tea and saving money would prove more important to the colonists than their concerns about taxation without representation. Instead, the Tea Act made the colonists furious. At public protests, Americans pledged not to purchase any English tea. As word spread of England's latest attempt at taxation, Adams became fashionable again, and his letters to newspapers throughout the colonies were widely quoted.

The British went forward with their plan to supply the colonies with tea. In December 1773 three ships loaded with containers of tea entered Boston Harbor. Members of the Sons of Liberty were posted at the dock to make sure that none of the tea came ashore. On December 16, at a Boston town meeting, more than seven thousand citizens decided to make a final request that the ships and their cargo be sent back to England. British officials refused.

The Boston "Tea Party"

A group of forty or fifty men, disguised as Native Americans to protect their identities, went to Boston's dock area. Crying "Boston Harbor a teapot tonight!" they boarded the ships by torchlight and dumped about 340 chests of tea (which would be worth nearly $100,000 today) into Boston Harbor. Adams, who had helped plan the protest, called it "the grandest event which has ever yet happened since the controversy with England opened."

Other such "tea parties" took place throughout the American colonies in 1774. Parliament punished the Americans through a series of measures the colonists called the Intolerable Acts. They barred all ships from entering the harbor until Boston paid for the lost tea. The people of Boston were placed under the command of a military governor, General Thomas Gage see entry, and his soldiers. Citizens were forced to house and feed the soldiers out of their own pockets, and town meetings were outlawed.

Adams worked hard to convince the other colonies that Boston's punishment was a blow to all of them. With Boston Harbor closed, little food could come into the city. Other colonies came to the rescue by sending food over land to Boston. For the first time in colonial history, people seized on the idea of forming a congress made up of representatives of all the colonies.

First Continental Congress

The idea of a congress grew like wildfire. Adams was one of those chosen by the Massachusetts House of Representatives to represent Massachusetts at the congress, which met for the first time on September 5, 1774, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The main order of business was to decide what to do about the conflict with England.

While some, like Adams, wanted to see a complete change in the government, others, such as George Washington see entry of Virginia, wanted to make only minor and gradual changes. The majority of the representatives sought a middle ground. Some delegates from the southern colonies feared that those from Massachusetts wanted to take over the country. Other delegates thought that only the wealthy and well educated should be in charge of the government. Many delegates feared independence because it might ruin the established system of trade and cause rivalries to break out among the different colonies. Instead of breaking ties with England, they wanted to find a way to restore good relations with the mother country. Realizing it was too soon to talk of independence, Adams said little during most of the First Continental Congress.

The representatives at the Congress approved a series of measures that demanded the repeal of the Tea Act. Although

they hoped to avoid war, the congress also urged the colonies to prepare for war, just in case it occurred, by training soldiers and gathering food and supplies. Delegates adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances (complaints) and promised to come to the aid of Massachusetts if it were attacked. The First Continental Congress agreed to forbid importation of British goods or the slaves they sought to sell, the use of any already imported British goods, and the export of goods to England. All counties, cities, and towns were to have committees of correspondence to ensure that these policies were carried out. Delegates hoped their united efforts would force England to restore their liberties.

King orders arms seizures

The First Continental Congress ended on October 16, 1774, after the participants agreed to meet again in May of the following year if the British failed to restore the colonists' rights. Adams returned to a Massachusetts now controlled by the Sons of Liberty; only the town of Boston remained under British control. Adams knew that the colony was on the brink of war but urged his men to remain cautious because the time was not yet right for war.

Early in 1775, after he heard the demands of the First Continental Congress, King George III of England proclaimed Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. He ordered soldiers to seize all firearms and gunpowder that were in the hands of the colonists and to arrest all rebel leaders. Redcoats searched Boston for hidden cannons. Fearing that he and his men might be arrested and hanged, Adams fled with his fellow patriot, John Hancock (see entries), to Lexington, Massachusetts.

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere see entry made his famous ride through the countryside of Massachusetts. He stopped at the home where the two men were hiding to warn them that the British were on their way to arrest them. Later Adams wrote about the battles of Lexington and Concord and "the shot heard round the world."

Congress meets; Adams does war work

Adams and Hancock made their way to Philadelphia, where the Second Continental Congress met beginning on May 10, 1775. Armed conflict had occurred only weeks before between the British and the colonists at Lexington and Concord. But there was still a great deal of disagreement among the colonists as to whether or not they should declare their independence from England.

The congress formed a committee to write the Articles of Confederation, which would be the blueprint for a new American government. Though he was a member of the committee, Adams spent most of his time trying to persuade other delegates to vote for independence. He also encouraged the formation of a Continental army. After more than a year's efforts, Adams succeeded in getting George Washington named its commander-in-chief. Adams was among the fifty men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, marking the birth of a new nation.

During the early part of the Revolutionary War, Adams served as chairman of the Committee on the State of the Northern Army, even though he had no military experience. In 1777 he became ill and went home to Massachusetts to recover. Adams returned to Philadelphia in early 1779 to join the Continental Congress. He returned to Boston in mid-1779 to find his family living in poverty because their home had been taken over by British soldiers. Adams, who was earning no money for his efforts on behalf of independence, could not help them.

In 1779 and 1780 Samuel Adams worked with his cousin, John Adams, and others to write the Massachusetts State Constitution, which became law in 1780. Soon after, Adams ran for the new office of First Secretary of Massachusetts, but he lost. He then went to work to help raise money from the various states to support the Continental army, which was seriously short of funds.

In 1781 Adams was elected to the Massachusetts Senate, where he served for several years as president, earning a small salary. He used money he had inherited from his family to purchase the Peacock Tavern and forty acres of land in a town outside Boston. The tavern business provided him an income of $1,000 per year, greatly improving his family's living conditions.

Serves in Massachusetts's government

On September 3, 1783, the United States and England signed the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War with victory for the United States. In 1787 a new U.S. Constitution was written, and in 1788 Adams was among the representatives who passed it. Adams argued for a bill of rights to be attached to the constitution, guaranteeing such basic rights as freedom of religion and freedom of speech. In 1791 the Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution.

In 1789 Adams was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and served for four years. Upon the death of Massachusetts governor John Hancock in 1793, seventy-two-year-old Adams became the governor. Adams held the post until 1797, putting in long hours each day. When George Washington retired from the U.S. presidency after two terms, Adams ran for the office, capturing the fifth-highest number of votes. He lost to his cousin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson see entry, who were elected president and vice president.

Final years

Adams retired from public life in January 1797. For the next several years he relaxed with his family, although people continued to seek him out and ask for his advice. He enjoyed looking back at the time of the revolution. He died on October 2, 1803, in Boston. Although Adams had requested a simple ceremony, he was given an elaborate funeral. Throughout Boston shops were closed, bells were rung, cannons were fired, and flags were flown at half-mast. Adams was buried at Boston's Old Granary Burying Ground. For centuries, visitors have gone there to pay their respects to the founding father whom Thomas Jefferson once called "the Man of the Revolution."