Biography: Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 27, 1722.. He was a leader of the fight against British colonial rule, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Adams was a cousin of John Adams who became the second President of the United States.

Adams' father, a deacon of the church and successful brewer, played a prominent role in Boston politics. When Samuel was a young man, the royal government ruled the senior Adams' investments illegal, ruining him financially. This may have been the cause of Samuel's animosity toward and opposition to colonial authority.

Samuel Adams graduated in 1743 from Harvard College with a Master of Arts degree. After college he entered private business, and throughout this period was an outspoken participant in Boston town meetings. When his business failed in 1764 Adams entered politics full-time, and was elected to the Massachusetts legislature. He lead the effort to establish a committee of correspondence that published a Declaration of Colonial Rights he had written.

Adams was a vocal opponent of several laws passed by the British Parliament to raise revenue in the American Colonies. By 1773, Adams and his Boston associates had pressured England to rescind all these measures but one, the Tea Act. The Tea Act granted the British East India company a monopoly on the sale of tea to the colonies, and included a tax paid to the British crown. Opposition reached its peak on December 16, 1773 when a group of Bostonians dumped a British cargo of tea into Boston Harbor. This act of resistance is referred to as the Boston Tea Party.

The British Parliament responded to the "Boston Tea Party" by passing a set of laws referred to as the "Intolerable Acts." These laws included the closing of Boston Harbor and the restriction town meetings. Adams then urged a general boycott of British trade by the American Colonies.

In 1774 the Massachusetts legislature send Adams and four others as its representatives to the First Continental Congress. Adams served Massachusetts again at the Second Continental Congress where he was an advocate for independence and confederation for the American Colonies.

Adams served Continental Congress until his return to Boston in 1781. He initially opposed the new Constitution of the United States, but finally supported its ratification in Massachusetts. Adams served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1793 to 1797.