John Hancock And Samuel Adams example essay topic

657 words
John Hancock's ancestors came to the New World from England and had settled in Massachusetts Bay Colony by 1648. The Hancock family prospered and soon became one of Massachusetts's most powerful families. John Hancock's father and grandfather were graduated from Harvard College, one the first schools established in America. At the age of eight Johnny's father died. Soon after that Johnny went to live with Thomas Hancock, his uncle. Thomas was a rich merchant in the port of Boston.

Johnny liked the life in Boston. There he enrolled to study Latin, Greek, history Philosophy and Theology. In 1750 his uncle enrolled him in Harvard College and graduated four years later, at the age of seventeen. John owes a lot of gratitude to his uncle; because of him it was possible for John to be a student in that prestigious University. John Hancock was different from most other American Revolutionary War leaders, because he was very rich. John Hancock was a great man and the many good deeds through his life talk about his generosity and patriotism.

This led him to become elected for legislator, governor and also to be the president of the Continental Congress. There were specifically twenty deeds that lead John Hancock to be known as a hero in the Revolutionary war. John Hancock was first involved in politics in 1765 when he was elected as selectman for the town of Boston Unfortunately that was the very same year as the Stamp Act was approved. In 1766 John was yet again re-elected to be at the legislature. Then in April seventeenth of 1766 a newspaper unofficially, reported the end of the Stamp Act. A little after this, Samuel Adams asked John to run for the Colonial Legislature.

Soon after, in 1767 John was elected Boston's Town and Board Legislator for the Colony. Thereafter, in 1780 John Hancock was elected the first Governor of Massachusetts under the new Constitution. However he did not run for the Governor for the next two years until actually he was persuaded to do so. John Hancock was not only a rich man, but also he had a tremendous amount of courage. He was a truly brave man. One of the ways he showed his bravery was when he smuggled goods into the Colony, even after his ship was illegally searched during the tea taxing era.

Later on, the? Red Coated? came in to search the ships, this time they brought a legal authorization to conduct the search. The ship's crew locked the red coat soldiers in the ship, while the cargo was removed. Another way in which John Hancock demonstrated his courage is the fact that he was the first one signing the Declaration of Independence, and his signature was purposely drawn larger to denote his devotion and loyalty to the Colonies cause. This act should also be considered a courageous act because everybody knew that King George was going to order every man signing the Declaration of Independence to be killed. Unfortunately most of them were.

Everybody, except John Hancock signed with their names as small as possible. John Hancock was literally hated by the British. He was charged with high treason by the English government. Because of this, one of the missions for the British on the Battle of Lexington and Concord was to capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams.

Fortunately, their mission failed. After this, John Hancock ran for president of the Second Continental Congress. This job was given to General George Washington. Even though John Hancock lost the election, he still continued to support the American cause. One of the ways he helped the Colonies was by building a navy and supplying the American Army.

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