Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was born in Boston on September 16, 1722. In 1736, Adams began schooling at Harvard College, where he studied politics. After completing his masters in 1743, Adams went into business with a small loan of £1,000 (which in 2020 would be the equivalent of about $285,430) from his father.

Adams, who was lacking in business instincts, spent most of the money frivolously. [1]

In 1748, Adams and some friends started The Independent Adviser, a weekly newspaper that printed political essays, most of which were written by Adams. [2]

In 1768, Adams ventured further into journalism with The Journal of Occurrences. The goal of the journal was to put the loathsome acts of the British soldiers, who occupied the American colonies, on display.

Acts committed by the soldiers and reported on by The Journal of Occurrences included:

Extorting money from colonists
Use of profane and abusive language
Public drunkenness
Surrounding a man on the street and beating him
Assault of a woman, and several accounts of attempted assault

The goal of The Journal of Occurrences was to turn the American colonists against the British and to stir up support for a revolution. By the time The Journal stopped circulation in 1769, this goal had been accomplished.

However, there was a problem with the stories published in The Journal: most of the stories were not true.

Many of the attacked citizens in the articles were unnamed, making it impossible to track them down and confirm the stories published. Some of the attacks were published months after they allegedly happened, raising to question why the stories were not published closer to when they happened so as to warn the public. And several of the stories were only published in the The Journal of Occurrences, and never elaborated on by other local papers. [3]

Samuel Adams turned much of the American public in favor of a revolution, but he did so by circulating sensational articles and propaganda.

Footnotes

[1] Alexander, John K. Samuel Adams: America's Revolutionary Politician. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

[2] Lucier, Armand Francis. Journal of Occurrences: Patriot Propaganda on the British Occupation of Boston, 1768-1769. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1996.

[3] Streimatter, Rodger. Mightier than the Sword. New York, NY: Westview Press, 2016.

Image

Copley, John Singleton. “Samuel Adams.” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Accessed July 28, 2020. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/30881.