Gerald Holland
The Legacy of James Otis
Influential patriot, James Otis Jr., and royal governor of Colonial Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, started as political acquaintances. In 1760, they sparked a political and personal rivalry that unwittingly swept them up as leading forces in Boston’s revolutionary movement just before the Revolutionary War. This presentation examines the rivalry between James Otis Jr. and Thomas Hutchinson and how that rivalry led to the development of the revolutionary period in Boston.
[Recorded August 12, 2023]
Gerald Holland is a PhD candidate at Liberty University where he is presently working on his dissertation which will examine the life of James Otis. In 2014, he founded the Williamsburg-Yorktown American Revolution Round Table. Publications include contributions to the Journal of the American Revolution and the London based Trafalgar Chronicle. Recently, he was named a 2023-2024 Benjamin F. Stevens Fellow through the Massachusetts Historical Society. After a 20 year career in the United States Coast Guard, he retired in 2022 and now works as a high school history teacher.
