Samuel Adams, Brewer and Patriot
Unfortunately for old Samuel Adams, he would lose much of his wealth in a risky investment in paper currency, a form of currency outlawed in 1744 by the British government. Samuel Adams the younger had just earned his Master’s Degree from Harvard College the previous year.
The pair decided to go into business together opening up a brewery. When the elder Adams died in 1748, control of the brewery went entirely to Samuel Adams. He ran the brewery singly for over 20 years, but it failed in 1764. The brewery had never been particularly profitable, but he held on until finally he had to shut it down. His largely unsuccessful stint as a brewer would not go unremembered, however, and in 1985 would serve as the name of the highly popular Samuel Adams beer company.
It is also interesting to note that Adams served some time as a tax collector in Boston. His knowledge of British tax codes would serve him well in his post-brewery career as one of the most important Massachusetts politicians in United States history.
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty
Adams always had a rebellious bent. His master’s thesis in fact revolved around the issue of the legality of resisting authority in order to preserve the commonwealth. It is obvious that this sort of thought was of great inspiration to him in the decade preceding the start of the American Revolution.
Never a fan of the British government, Adams drafted the first negative response to Parliament’s Sugar Act of 1764. In 1765 he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, a position he would keep until 1774.
Throughout this period Samuel Adams was one of the most vocal opponents of the actions of the British Parliament, particularly the Townshend Acts of 1767. The colonies succeeded in defeating the Sugar Act with its repeal in 1766 although the Townshend Acts remained.
Samuel Adams was also an extremely important popular member of the Boston Sons of Liberty. This was one of many such loosely organized organizations that existed in every one of the 13 colonies.
Going beyond mere talk and rhetoric, the Sons of Liberty engaged in what the British of the day considered terrorist acts: burning people in effigy, burning down houses, even tarring and feathering those who opposed them.
In 1768 due to highly vocal and volatile resistance to the Crown in Boston (due in much part to the work of Samuel Adams, such as the formation of the Non-Importation League), the city was occupied by two regiments of British troops.
On March 5th, 1770, an altercation erupted between British soldiers and Bostonians protesting the occupation. Shots were fired by the British into an angry crowd, killing 9 people. Dubbed by Samuel Adams as the Boston Massacre, the violent incident rallied many across the colonies to the side of the Patriots.
The most famous action of the Sons of Liberty, however, was the Boston Tea Party. Orchestrated by Adams to protest the new Tea Act, he personally led a band of man onto ships anchored in Boston Harbor. Dressed as Indians to disguise themselves (although everyone knew who was responsible), Adams and his confederates dumped all of the tea stored onto the ships into the harbor on December 13th, 1773.
This act of insurrection was the final straw for the British, who responded with the Intolerable Acts, including the closing of the Boston port, revocation of the Massachusetts colonial charter and the institution of martial law in the city of Boston.
Outraged at the actions of the British, the colonies organized and formed the Continental Congress. Samuel Adams as well as his cousin John Adams were members of this important Congress that would lead to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution.
Samuel Adams After the Revolution
Despite all he had done in fighting for the cause of the Patriots leading up to the Revolution and his role in the Continental Congress, Sam Adams failed to win election to the House of Representatives after the signing of the Constitution.
Adams remained instead in Massachusetts, serving first as Lieutenant Governor then as Governor until his retirement in 1797. He lived out the remainder of his days in his Boston home, dying in 1803.
In his over 50 years of public life Samuel Adams worked as a failed brewer, tax collector, Massachusetts legislator and vital rabble rouser for the cause of patriotism and freedom. Although forever linked with the brewery trade as the name of the popular beer brand, it is as a patriot that Sam Adams’ true legacy remains. One cannot even imagine what would have happened in those turbulent years of the colonial period without his violent passion for liberty and his explosive talent at oratory.
