George Twelve Hewes Character Traits

George Twelve Hewes was born in the year 1742 in Boston. All his names were named after his family members; George after his father; Robert after his uncle and Twelves after his maternal grandmother whose maiden name was Twelves. Even with the names he got after his relatives which made his name so long, Hewes was more like a neglected child from his parents, he received very little from them. Hewes was very short standing at five feet height; not wealth for his father who was a failed tanner – made his death when Hewes was only seven. Not even love did Hewes received from them, for the only thing he spoke about his mother was the spanking he received for being disobedient. Her mother thought her to be shoemaker at a tender age of fourteen – one of the lowest trades of that era. Hewes's personality was shaped by the harsh conditions she was subjected to as he grew up. When he was a grown-up, Hewes became the person at the forefront of fighting against inhumaneness, even the tar, and feathering of a loyalist who was nearly

taking his life away. Throughout his life, the past experiences made him exceptionally sensitive about his social class status. Hewes was not a rascal and neither was he a beggar, he responded to a Boston aristocrat who despised him, and even though he was a poor man, he was as good as he was for credit in town. Hewes who was a "tongue-tied" man when he was young, was transformed into a "defiant person who would not take his hat off for any man" by 1779.
More than 4,000 military men drew a 26-year-old Hewes into a resistance movement due to the Boston’s occupation from Britain in 1768. Initially, Hewes joined the movement because of his personal reasons for challenging the British sentries and for a British soldier's refusal to pay for a pair of shoes. Then later own, his ambition became political. This move was as a result of his anger towards the action of the poorly paid British military men taking away the jobs intended for the people of Boston, and his anger even worsened when a loyalist trader shot at a gathering of apprentices who were picketing his shop, and one of them died as a result. Therefore, in the 5th of March 1770 when the British military men came out to stop the crowd from protesting on the streets, Hewes became part of Bostonians marching along the king's highway – the protestors claimed that they had equal rights as the military men to be on those streets.
Hewes's growing enlightenment in politics and fate had put him in the mid of the infamous Boston massacre.

It was so sad for him since the four men who were shot in that night by the British military men were not only his Bostonians but Sergeant Caldwell who one of the four was standing just at his side when he was met with the bullet, and it was Hewes who got hold of him as he fell. Being angered by the nightmare, Hewes equipped himself with a cane, but his mission was not to be since he was immediately threatened by Sergeant Chambers who was a member of the 29th British Regiment along with other eight military men who were armed with cutlasses and massive clubs. Sergeant Chambers took away the cane from him, but as Hewes explained in a legal statement, "I told him I had as good a right to carry a cane as they had to carry clubs" – a statement that went on to explain the brutality of the military men who brutalized and killed

civilians.
Hewes was so dedicated to standing against the British rule, and the British authorities never forgave his radicalism. His ability to speak for the people made one of his creditors, a loyal trader so envious. Since Hewes did never make it good being a shoemaker, he often found himself struggling on the edge of poverty. With the inability to repay a two-year debt of 6.8s.3p, he got himself into the debtor's prison in 1770. Such lavishness of dress on the part of Hewes was uncommon. The decision to purchase a suit for the sake of getting to marry Sally Summer, the daughter of the First Baptist Church sexton whom he married in 1768 was a desperate ploy considering his state of poverty. Nonetheless, a prison was not a place to hinder him from pursuing his cause of patriotism. Hewes turned out as a volunteer at a tea party facilitated by one of the radical patriot leaders of Boston in the night of 16th December 1773. He smeared his face and arms using coal dust which he got from the blacksmith's shop, "I fell in with many who were dressed . . . as I was," somewhat to his surprise, that "the commander of the division to which I belonged, as soon as we were on board the ship, appointed me boatswain, and ordered me to go to the captain and demand of him the keys to the hatches." Hewes was picked out from the rest and placed as a minor leader, the part we he acted it well. Thompson Maxwell who was a tea party volunteer courtesy of John Hancock recounts that "I went accordingly, joined the band under one Captain Hewes; we mounted the ships and made tea in a trice. In the heat of conflict the small man with the large name had been elevated from a poor shoemaker to Captain Hewes." Hewes might have earned himself an opportunity to become famous, but to him, that was a hindrance to his destiny.
During the struggle and fight for independence, Hewes fought as a soldier and an ordinary sailor, getting into the waters two times in the private voyage and about for times as a soldier, this added up to his 20 months of service in the military. He was not concerned in amassing wealth, of fame or even getting a better pay. It is even stated that the war cost him his shop, which he had built in Boston, which was destroyed and burned down by the British military men. In terms of material gain, the American Revolution was no worse than how his parents did him. Hewes remained in the same state of poverty by 1830 as reported by one of the journalists in the New York State. For him, the spiritual satisfaction was worth more than the material gain.
The spiritual gain and satisfaction can be concluded as a reward that Hewes gained through his revolutionary moves, pulling down the differential status placed by the monarchical authorities on people. He advocated for equality, which made citizens equally proud of whom they were. What this meant to Hewes was that thousands of the patriots who were discriminated against could have a say. Since he was a tongue-tied man, Hewes was differential in the presence of rich merchant. But in the Tea Party story, Hewes was made an equal to John Hancock, placing him at the scene and demanding to claim that he got engaged at one time in the same chest tea demolition. In this definition of social detachment, the statement of impartiality was the basis of one of the most insightful meanings of the American Revolution.