The Braintree Instructions were all about a group of colonists getting together to tell the British Government a few things they wanted changed about their policies; it was about representation, the people here in the colonies didn’t want a tax (the Stamp Act) imposed without getting the chance to vote that tax; it wasn’t about lowering taxes but having a voice, this was democracy or the lack of it in action. Several people from the Braintree Town Meeting and voices like John Adams, who wrote the Instructions, on September 24, 1765 influenced how people thought and talked about the revolution over the next ten years. The Town Meeting instructed their representative, Ebenezer Thayer, to go to the Massachusetts General Court or legislature and highlight the Town’s concerns.
The Braintree Instructions were published in the Massachusetts Gazette on October 10, 1765 and four days later in the Boston Gazette. Eventually Adams' language was adopted by over forty other towns in Massachusetts.
What’s cool for Braintree, is that the Braintree Instructions event happened in what’s still called the town of Braintree today, at the First Congregational Church on Washington and Elm streets.
We’d like to celebrate the call for rights by the people of Braintree, and democracy by hosting a small group of Braintree Instructions skits developed and presented by interested youth groups of today’s Braintree and the surrounding towns of Quincy, Holbrook and Randolph, which were once part of Old Braintree.
