Who wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence?

Thomas Jefferson wrote the original draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Congress appointed the Committee of Five on June 11, 1776, to prepare a document explaining independence. The committee included Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, but it asked Jefferson to produce the initial draft.

Jefferson wrote most of that draft between June 11 and June 28, 1776. The other committee members reviewed it, and the Continental Congress later revised the text, removing sections and changing its wording before adoption.

Jefferson therefore became the principal drafter, not the sole author of the final document. Congress approved the final version on July 4, and the engrossed parchment copy was signed primarily on August 2.