A radical from South Carolina known as "the Sam Adams of the South," Christopher Gadsden was a leader in the resistance movement (1764-75) against imperial regulation and an important politician and military officer during the Revolutionary War (1775-83). The son of the British collector of customs for Charleston, Gadsden made his own fortune in Charleston as a merchant and developer. When Governor Thomas Boone challenged his reelection to the state assembly in 1762 as fraudulent, Gadsden emerged as a leading critic of British interference in colonial affairs, attending the Stamp Act Congress and organizing the Sons of Liberty in South Carolina. Later, after the Townshend duties (1767) were instituted, he promoted the local nonimportation of British goods. He attended both the First Continental Congress and Second Continental Congress and designed a lasting image of the Revolutionary War: a yellow flag featuring a coiled rattlesnake above the words Don't Tread on Me.

In 1776 Gadsden returned to South Carolina to serve in the Provincial Congress and state militia before receiving a commission as a brigadier general in the Continental army later that year. During the siege of Charleston (April-May 12, 1780), Gadsden refused to flee and was held captive for 42 weeks in a British prison in St. Augustine, Florida. Although he declined the state assembly's offer to serve as governor in 1781 due to age and ill health, Gadsden remained active in state politics. As a Federalist, he was a member of the South Carolina convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788 and the convention that wrote the state's constitution in 1790. He died in Charleston on September 15, 1805.

Bibliography:

1) Stanly E. Godbold and Robert H. Woody, Christopher Gadsden and the American Revolution (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982);

2) Daniel J. McDonough, Christopher Gadsden and Henry Laurens: The Parallel Lives of Two American Patriots (Sellinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 2000).

Free term papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom written research paper, term paper, or essay on American Revolution at affordable price. CustomTermPapers is the best solution for those who seek help in writing term papers, essays, and research papers related to American Revolution and other relevant topics.