Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 as David Henry Thoreau in Massachusetts, the third of fourth siblings. As a child, he was interested in nature and could often be found outside.

Henry David Thoreau lived around the time women and slaves were demanding more rights. These two movements were called the Abolitionist movement and the Suffrage movement. Thoreau's siblings were all Suffragists and Abolitionists.

Thoreau believed that the best governments govern the least and wrote about and taught this principle throughout his life. 

In 1842 Thoreau decided to stop paying a local tax which he thought was funding the Mexican-American war, which he opposed. The tax in question was actually a local tax and not a federal one, so it couldn't have been used to fund the war.

Thoreau was arrested by the local sheriff after four years of refusing to pay the tax. After being jailed, he was released the next day when somebody paid his debts for him.

Thoreau was actually upset that he was released, hoping that his imprisonment would raise awareness to his cause. 

Thoreau's imprisonment led him to write his essay Resistance to Civil Government, later renamed Civil Disobedience. In his essay, he writes about how it is sometimes necessary to refuse to cooperate with the government if the government is unjust.

Thoreau founded his own school in 1838 with his brother, John. His school didn't use corporal punishment and taught students in a new way. It earned such good reviews that there was a waiting list to enroll.