(Boston, 1722 – id., 1803) American politician, prominent hero of the country’s independence. Founder of the Bostonian section of the Sons of Liberty, an organization created to protect the rights of settlers against abuses by the crown, Samuel Adams was at the head of the Americans who challenged the authority of the British Parliament and led the independence movement.
Samuel Adams
After studying at Harvard College and studying law, he practiced various trades and entered the political life of Boston. From 1765 to 1774 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and led the most radical faction, which called for a boycott of British products and the payment of taxes. Samuel Adams led the famous action known as the Riot of Tea (the Boston Tea Party ), participated significantly in other outstanding events of the time and was in the vanguard of those Americans who defied the authority of the British Parliament and led the rebellion.
Adams also played a prominent role as a revolutionary ideologue. Many of his writings, mainly political pamphlets, were widely circulated. Adams’s contributions to the Gazette, a Boston newspaper, made up much of his agitation activity. In them he raised the impossibility of a reconciliation with Great Britain, betting on revolutionary action.
In 1774 the Massachusetts General Courts approved the sending of representatives to the First Continental Congress, which was to meet in Philadelphia. Elected delegate to the same, Adams also became the leader of the most radical faction of the Congress, that demanded stronger measures against Great Britain. Before finalizing, the Continental Congress requested to establish a boycott to the British products and recommended the use of the force to refuse to pay the taxes established by the government of London.
Also elected delegate to the Second Continental Congress, held in Philadelphia in 1775, he was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). Until its dissolution in 1781, Adams belonged to the Continental Congress, within which he opposed creating a single political center to organize the war against the British crown; Due to this refusal, he lost popularity, as it was revealed that the lack of a strong government made the fight difficult. In 1779 he was a member of the committee that wrote the Constitution of the state of Massachusetts, and, once the war ended and independence materialized, he ratified the United States Constitution (1788). Later he was Lieutenant Governor (1789-1793) and Governor (1794-1797) of Massachusetts.
