Who was Samuel Adams?

Samuel Adams was a Massachusetts Patriot leader, propagandist, and political organizer who shaped the resistance movement against Britain from 1765 onward and is best remembered as the principal organizer of the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773. He was born on September 27, 1722 in Boston, the son of a wealthy maltster, and graduated from Harvard College in 1740. He inherited his father's brewing business but lacked aptitude for trade and lost most of the family fortune; he turned instead to politics and journalism, where his talents proved formidable.

He served as a Boston tax collector from 1756 to 1764, joined the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1765, and emerged during the Stamp Act crisis as a leader of resistance. Adams co-organized the Boston Sons of Liberty in 1765 and helped coordinate the August 1765 protests that destroyed Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson's mansion and forced stamp distributor Andrew Oliver to resign. He drafted the Massachusetts Circular Letter of February 11, 1768 protesting the Townshend Duties and inviting other colonies to coordinate resistance, a letter that infuriated the British government and led to the dispatch of British troops to occupy Boston in October 1768.

Adams used the press skillfully, publishing widely under pseudonyms including Vindex and Determinatus, and he led the propaganda campaign after the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770 that turned five dead colonists into political martyrs. In 1772 he organized the Boston Committee of Correspondence, the first of dozens of local committees that became the communication network of the Patriot movement. During the Tea Act crisis of 1773, Adams chaired the mass meetings at the Old South Meeting House on December 14 to 16 that demanded the tea ships return to England.

When Hutchinson refused clearance, Adams reportedly told the crowd at the December 16 meeting that "this meeting can do nothing more to save the country," a coded signal for the men disguised as Mohawks to leave the meeting and proceed to Griffin's Wharf where they destroyed 342 chests of tea. Adams served in the First and Second Continental Congresses from 1774 to 1781, signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776, helped draft the Articles of Confederation, and worked closely with cousin John Adams. He served as governor of Massachusetts from 1794 to 1797. He died on October 2, 1803 in Boston at age 81. The Samuel Adams Brewing Company founded in 1984 carries his name, although he was a brewer's son rather than a famous brewer in his own right.