---
title: "James Bowdoin"
chunk: 2/4
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bowdoin"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:05:53.054160+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Bowdoin was elected to the provincial assembly in 1753 and served there until named to the governor's council in 1756. Although at first supportive of the royal governor, his politics became more radical as British colonial policy became increasingly unpopular, and Bowdoin believed those policies would have a negative effect on the New England economy. Personal factors may also have played a role in Bowdoin's shift in views: John Temple, the local customs commissioner and Bowdoin's son in law, was embroiled in nasty disputes with Governor Francis Bernard in the 1760s. By 1769 Bowdoin was one of the principal spokesmen of the opposition to the governor on the council. In that year Bernard rejected Bowdoin's renewed election to the council. Bowdoin, however, was instrumental in causing Bernard's downfall from office. Private letters critical of the provincial government that Bernard had written were published in 1769 to great outrage. Bowdoin rebutted the charges and claims made in Bernard's letters, and published a highly polemic pamphlet arguing for Bernard's removal that was sent to the colonial secretary, Lord Hillsborough.
Bowdoin won reelection to the assembly in 1770, and was promptly reelected to the council the same year, soon after Bernard left the province. Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson acquiesced to Bowdoin's return to the council, reasoning that he was less dangerous there than as an outspoken critic in the lower house. However, the seat Bowdoin vacated in the assembly was taken by Samuel Adams, another leading political opponent of the royal governors, and Hutchinson was faced with the prospect of opposition on both fronts.
After the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, Bowdoin was chosen by the Boston town meeting to serve on a committee that investigated the affair. The committee took depositions and produced a report describing the event that was published as A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre. The work was highly critical not only of the governor, but also the behavior of the British Army troops that were stationed in Boston, and is characterized by historian Francis Walett as one of the major propaganda pieces influencing public opinion in the colonies. Bowdoin's opposition to British policies continued during the Hutchinson administration, and when letters by Hutchinson were published to outrage similar to the Bernard letters affair, Bowdoin again penned works highly critical of the governor and calling for his removal. Hutchinson's successor, General Thomas Gage, vetoed Bowdoin's reelection to the council in 1774, citing "express orders from His Majesty" that he be excluded from that body.

== Government of Massachusetts ==

Bowdoin as named as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 but did not attend, citing the poor health of his wife. A bout of poor health, probably caused by tuberculosis, at the time also affected him. Bowdoin was again ill in 1775 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, and the family was relocated from British-occupied Boston (which was then under siege by area militia) first to Dorchester, and eventually to Middleborough, where he resided until 1778. (Bowdoin's Beacon Street mansion was occupied by General John Burgoyne.) Despite his convalescence he was kept apprised of events occurring in and around Boston, and was elected president of the executive council of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. This position, which he held until 1777, made him the de facto head of the Massachusetts government. Citing his ongoing poor health, he resigned the post and withdrew from public view. He continued to correspond with other revolutionaries, and enjoyed their confidence, although his absence from the war effort would lead to later political difficulties. He began to return to public life in 1778, and when Massachusetts wrote its own constitution in 1779, he was president of the convention called to create it, and chairman of the committee that drafted it. John Adams, also a committee member, is generally credited as the major author of the new constitution, although Bowdoin and Samuel Adams likely made significant contributions.
In the first gubernatorial election, held in 1780, Bowdoin ran for the office against John Hancock. In the absence of formal party politics, the contest was one of personality, popularity, and patriotism. Hancock was immensely popular, and unquestionably patriotic given his personal sacrifices and his leadership of the Second Continental Congress. Bowdoin was cast by Hancock supporters as unpatriotic, citing among other things his refusal to serve in the First Continental Congress (even though it was due to his illness). Bowdoin's supporters, who were principally well-off commercial interests from Massachusetts coastal communities, cast Hancock as a foppish demagogue who pandered to the populace. Hancock won the election easily, receiving more than 90% of the vote. The Massachusetts House of Representatives offered Bowdoin either the lieutenant governorship or a seat in the state senate, but Bowdoin declined both on account of his poor health. After the election Hancock appointed him to a commission to revise and consolidate the state's laws.