Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was a Massachusetts politician, writer and organiser who became one of the most persistent advocates of colonial resistance to British imperial policy before the American Revolution. Born in Boston in 1722, he entered local politics after an unsuccessful business career and used newspapers, town meetings and legislative organisation to attack parliamentary taxation. He was particularly important in coordinating arguments about colonial rights and sustaining networks of resistance across Massachusetts.

Adams helped promote non-importation, supported the committees of correspondence and was closely associated with the political mobilisation that culminated in the Boston Tea Party, although the secretive nature of the event makes individual operational responsibility difficult to prove. Elected to the Continental Congress, he supported independence and signed the Declaration of Independence. After the war he served in Massachusetts government, becoming lieutenant governor and then governor. His political strength lay in organisation, rhetoric and coalition-building rather than military command.

Ann Rinaldi’s The Secret of Sarah Revere places Adams within the Patriot world surrounding Paul Revere. Nathaniel Philbrick’s Bunker Hill follows the escalation from resistance to open war and gives Adams an important organisational role, while David Hackett Fischer’s Paul Revere’s Ride examines the network of communication that made the 1775 alarm possible. Hourly History’s Boston Tea Party covers the protest movement with which Adams is closely associated.