(b. 1742; d. November 5, 1840) Source for two workingman's accounts of events during the American Revolution.

George Hewes was a poor shoemaker in Boston before the American Revolution, a sailor and militiaman during the war, and a poor farmer afterward. He was not a political leader, though he once set off a small riot. Instead, Hewes was a face in the crowd at the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party. In two books he left a man-on-the-street's view of America's break with Britain. Hewes's participation in the protest leading to the Revolutionary War and in the war itself changed his self-image from a subject restricted by class and custom to a citizen judged on his merits. In many ways, Hewes's personal transformation from subject to citizen reflected the larger change in American culture, society, and identity that were part of the American War for...