ABSTRACT
Samuel Adams has long been considered the American Revolutionary par excellence, a personification of the American spirit of independence. He predicted an outbreak of hostilities as early as 1768 with the sending of troops to Boston but he did not openly advocate American independence as the only solution to the imperial problem until 1775, well after the fighting at Lexington and Concord. Adams earned two Harvard degrees and was no mobocrat, no demagogue, though political opponents accused him of being both. He did not instigate the massacre, he did not singlehandedly orchestrate the Tea Party, he did not manipulate people and events to produce the “shot heard round the world.” Adams’s “Vindex” essays in 1768 show his sense of history and his efforts to shape and mobilize an informed opinion, not just provoke mindless resentment, as the basis for political action.
