James Otis: Overshadowed American Colonial Hero

Although he is not as well known as others who forged the nation during the American revolution the significance of James Otis is no less in importance to that struggle. He was born on february 25th 1725 in Massachusetts and was educated at Harvard. He entered law in 1748 and basically spent the rest of his career to various degrees fighting the British over their excessive and unfair taxation and heavy handed tactics in the colonies.
In 1761 he resigned from the office of Advocate General in Boston so that he could represent merchants who opposed writs of assistance. These writs allowed Royal Customs collectors to search merchants who were suspected of possessing contraband which violated the Molasses Act of 1733.
In 1764 he authored a document that advocated for free speech and against taxation called: The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proven.
He condemned the Townshend Acts of 1767 which imposed customs duties on Colonists and required them to provide adequate accomodations for British troops. It was this move on the part of the English that led to unrest in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the colonies and events such as the Boston Massacre in 1770.
In 1769 Otis was physically attacked by a conservative customs collector who opposed his views. The severity of this attack left him permanantly injured and it forced him to withdraw from public life. He lived the rest of his life in a state of mental incapacitation and died 14 years later on May 23 1783.