Matthew Galvin
American Revolution
Professor Kelley
November 21, 2014
George Roberts Twelves Hewes and the American Revolution In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the city of Boston became a hot bed of colonist rebellion against the British Government. The citizens in Boston, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had become fed up with unjustified taxation levied against them by the British. The colonists of Boston also saw it to be problematic that the colonies were subject to British rule, but were not represented in Parliament. In the half-decade prior to the Revolutionary War, the city of Boston hosted two monumental events that rallied the colonists into the direction of independence; the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. A man named George Roberts Twelve Hewes had the honor of being able to witness and take direct involvement in both the Massacre and the Tea Party. George Roberts Twelve Hewes was born and raised in Massachusetts and saw the development of the Revolution from the perspective of an “everyday” colonist. He was born on August 25th, 1742. Hewes was a shoemaker by trade and was never able to amount an impressive net worth. If anything, it can be argued that Hewes was very much more poverty stricken than anything else. Money never seemed to influence Hewes’s actions; instead George Roberts Twelve Hewes was a man of principal and integrity. Prior to the Revolutionary War, Hewes participated in both the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party. During the Revolutionary War, Hewes served as a Privateer and a member of the militia for the Thirteen Colonies. After the Revolution, George Robert Twelve Hewes moved to Upstate New York where he lived out the rest of his life. Many historians argue that men of great wealth and merit were the drivers of the revolutionary movement, however this was not always the case. The life and