Samuel Adams’s Accomplishments

Samuel Adams had many accomplishments. He was elected to the General Court of Massachusetts to represent Boston in 1771. Due to health concerns, he retired in 1772 and returned to farming, but the agrarian life did not suit him, and he was back in Boston within a year. He implicitly supported the Boston Tea Party in1773—“the grandest event which has yet happened since the controversy with Britain opened”—and actively opposed the Coercive Acts of 1774. That same year, Massachusetts sent him as a delegate to the First Continental Congress.

Samuel Adams’s Other Accomplishments

Privately, Adams wished for separation from the crown, but he took cautious steps with a Congress that had not arrived at that solution. Adams helped draft a declaration of rights and supported the non-importation of British goods. He returned home disgusted with the results of the first Congress but firmly resolved to keep pushing for separation. His running debate in the press with Tory Daniel Leonard under the pseudonym “Novanglus” provided both an intellectual and influential outlet for his patriotic views. When he returned to the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, shots had already been fired at Lexington and Con-cord. The Congress needed to appoint a commander of all American forces, and Adams, recognizing that the other states were suspicious of New England, nominated George Washington. Washington, he hoped, would act as a unifying figure for the Southern states.