Founding Father Samuel Adams (1722 – 1803) was a thorn in the side of the British in the years before the American Revolution. As a political activist and state legislator, he spoke out against British efforts to tax the colonists, and pressured merchants to boycott British products. He also was an important leader in the Sons of Liberty, a radical group that engaged in violent civil disobedience and retaliation against those who cooperated with the British. Additionally, as a writer, Adams was a skillful propagandist, churning out scores of newspaper articles, pamphlets and letters to promote resistance to British rule.
In fact, while George Washington led the American colonists to victory in the Revolutionary War, there might not have been a revolution at all if it weren’t for provocateurs such as Samuel Adams.
Adams and other firebrands helped push moderate colonial leaders into joining in the resistance against the British, which eventually led to the war. But Adams wasn’t just a rabble rouser. He also was a serious political theorist who championed the notion of individual rights, which became a core American value. During the Revolutionary War, Adams served in the Continental Congress, and helped draft the Articles of Confederation, the document that was the predecessor to the U.S. Constitution.
Sons of Liberty
Though Adams wasn’t very good with money, he was a good writer. He and some friends started their own short-lived newspaper, The Public Advertiser, which published Adams’ opinion pieces. He used that opportunity to exhort other Bostonians to cherish and protect their personal freedom.
Adams’ voice became more prominent in the mid-1760s, when the British government tried to pay off debt from the Seven Years War by imposing new taxes upon the American colonists. While others merely grumbled about the economic harm, Adams argued in print that the British were violating the colonists’ rights, because they were being taxed without representation in Parliament. He denounced the Stamp Act, a 1765 tax law, as an attempt “to destroy the liberties of America as with one blow.”
That same year, Adams was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, an office he would hold for nine years. Around that time, he also joined a secretive group of activists called the Loyal Nine, which eventually evolved into a more radical organization called the Sons of Liberty.
When British troops arrived in Boston in 1768, Adams became more heavily involved in organizing resistance against the Crown. He wrote scores of newspaper articles under pen names, attacking the British. He also pressured Boston merchants to boycott British goods.
Role in the Boston Tea Party
After the British Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773, which sought to force the colonists to buy their tea from the British East India Company, Adams helped organize Bostonians to hinder the tea shipments. One group of resisters took matters even further, dressing up as Indian warriors and boarding several British ships to dump their tea, in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. Adams, who may have played a role in planning the event, afterward he praised it publicly, writing that the protesters “have acted upon pure and upright principle.”
Eventually, British authorities had enough of Adams and his agitation. In 1775, British General Thomas Gage led a force of soldiers from Boston to Lexington, on a mission to arrest Adams and fellow colonial radical John Hancock. But American spies got wind of the plan, and American militiamen confronted the British on Lexington Common. The ensuing Battles of Lexington and Concord were the opening armed confrontations that sparked the Revolutionary War.
As a delegate to the Continental Congress, Adams signed the Declaration of Independence, and continued his inflammatory rhetoric. In a 1776 speech in Philadelphia, he castigated Americans who sided with the Crown. “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace,” Adams said. “We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.”
As a member of the Continental Congress, Adams also helped draft the Articles of Confederation, the predecessor to the U.S. Constitution.
The inscriptions on the base read: "Samuel Adams 1722 - 1803 Father of the Revolution" and "Sculptor Susie Chisholm NSS"
(NSS for National Sculpture Society)
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