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Samuel AdamsThe Rights of the Colonists
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1772A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key FiguresCharacter Analysis
Samuel Adams
Samuel Adams was a leading revolutionary in the 1760s and 1770s in the “American colonies.” (They can also be referred to as the “British colonies” although, as Britain had many other colonies around the world, the terminology is potentially confusing.) He was a politician, activist, and political philosopher.
Adams was born in Boston in 1722. He was an early leader in colonial resistance to perceived British oppression in the American colonies. He continues to be remembered principally for his leadership in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 and his role in founding the Sons of Liberty, a resistance organization dating to the early 1760s. Because of these contributions, Adams is considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He is also famous today for the Boston-based beer company named after him.
Adams’s reputation is somewhat controversial in modern scholarship and public opinion. Historical sources indicate differing opinions about the man and his influence even before Adams’s death in 1803. Some of these early criticisms came from British loyalists who opposed the Revolution in general, but others were from critics that doubted his influence and integrity.
Adams had been born into a wealthy and well-connected family, giving him access to the best education available in the colonies. Like many of his peers, Adams invoked images of slavery to characterize the relationship between Great Britain and the colonies without perhaps recognizing the atrocities faced by actual slaves in these colonies. Adams did emerge as an abolitionist in the Early Republic following the Revolution, particularly interested in ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. He did not, however, go as far as demanding the immediate freedom of enslaved people in the United States.
Through interpreting essays like “The Rights of the Colonists” and other works by Adams, we can decipher the meanings of freedom that the Founding Fathers aimed to uphold and protect.
John Locke
John Locke was a foundational philosopher in the movement known as the Enlightenment (see Index of Terms). Born in England in 1632, Locke became a philosopher and physician. He is best known now for his social and political ideas, many of which are central to “The Rights of the Colonists.”
Locke articulated the natural rights of man. This concept had emerged in ancient Greek discourse, but Locke revived it for his time and context.) Natural rights are freedoms that men supposedly have by virtue of being born (The ubiquitous use of masculine pronouns to refer to both “males” and “human beings” creates ambiguity in many texts written before the late 20th century, including those by Locke and Adams. Their works sometimes reinforce patriarchy and other forms of oppression even while critiquing them.). Locke also theorized the social contract—the bargain a person strikes in giving up certain rights in exchange for society’s protection. That bargain includes forfeiting some degree of freedom. Locke’s prescriptions for what constitutes just rule led him to support England’s “Glorious Revolution” in 1688, which expelled James II from the throne and shifted power to the Dutch leader William of Orange and his wife Mary, the daughter of James II.
Locke’s work continued to be influential in revolutionary ideology beyond the 17th century and beyond England.
King George III
King George III was the British monarch during the era of the American Revolution. He was crowned King in 1760 and quickly became engaged in overseas conflict with European rivals Spain and France. War debt from these conflicts was a major driver of George’s taxation policies in the American colonies—policies that angered colonists and incited resistance and eventually full-scale revolution.
Adams does not directly challenge George in “The Rights of the Colonists,” although he identifies the British government’s questionable practices regarding civil law and the basic rights of British subjects. The essay does not directly threaten George’s power in the way that the Declaration of Independence would four years later, but it articulates colonial discontent with the empire under George’s leadership.
