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Suffolk Resolves

Joseph Warren · 1774

A 1774 declaration from Massachusetts patriots rejecting British rule, endorsed with the backing of Samuel Adams, pushing the Continental Congress toward resistance.

Samuel Adams backed the endorsement of the Suffolk Resolves, helping push the Continental Congress toward resistance.

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Bronze plaque on a granite pedestal reading: 'Here met on September 6 1774 the convention which three days later at Milton adopted the Suffolk Resolves. They lighted the match that kindled the mighty conflagration of the American Revolution.' Stone steps and a doorway are visible at right, and grass and shrubs at left.
Suffolk Resolves memorial plaque, Dedham, Massachusetts.

About this source

What it is

The Suffolk Resolves was a declaration adopted in September 1774 by patriot leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, chiefly drafted by Joseph Warren. It rejected the Massachusetts Government Act and called for a boycott of British goods. Paul Revere carried a copy to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which endorsed it later that month.

Why it matters

Samuel Adams, a leading Massachusetts delegate, supported the Resolves' endorsement, which shifted Congress toward open resistance to Britain. Statesman Edmund Burke later recognized the Resolves as a major step toward the Declaration of Independence. The document shows how local Massachusetts politics, shaped partly by Adams, pushed the wider colonies toward revolution.

Look closer

  • Why might a county document, rather than one from Congress itself, have had such influence?
  • What does the language of the Resolves reveal about colonists' feelings toward Britain in 1774?
  • Why was it important that Congress formally endorsed a document it did not write?

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