Issues_ControversiesResponse_2Instructions Issues_ControversiesResponse_2Instructions1 BostonMassacreMainArticle
S.H. Salois
HST 103
Page 1 of 3
Issues & Controversies in History Response #2 Instructions
Step 1: Choose a topic.
Access the journal topics in Issues & Controversies in History by following these links:
1761 – 1812: Revolution and New Nation: https://ich-infobase-com.lib-
proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162080&view=grid
1813 – 1855: Expansion and Reform: https://ich-infobase-com.lib-
proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162121&view=grid
NOTE: If these links do not work for you, go to the Journal Assignments folder in our class and follow
the instructions there to access Issues & Controversies in History directly.
You may need to login to the library and
databases with your V number (include the
letter v before it and the letters JC after)
and your last name
Choose one topic from either the 1761-1812: Revolution and New Nation OR the 1813-1855:
Expansion and Reform index for your topic.
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162080&view=grid
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162080&view=grid
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162121&view=grid
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162121&view=grid
Page 2 of 3
Step 2: Identify the question.
Note the question included with each journal topic. For example:
The question for Boston Massacre is “Were British Soldiers or American Colonists to Blame?” You
will answer the question included with the topic of your choice.
Step 3: Read the materials.
Each topic includes the following menu on the right side:
Page 3 of 3
Step 4: Complete the assignment
Read all parts of the article, and then answer the following questions:
1. What is the question you are answering?
2. Briefly summarize the issue and the background in your own words in a paragraph.
3. Summarize the “case for” in your own words in a paragraph.
4. Briefly explain the evidence or arguments in the “case for” you think were most convincing and
why in a response of at least three sentences.
5. Summarize the “case against” in a paragraph.
6. Briefly explain the evidence or arguments in the “case against” you think were most convincing
and why in a response of at least three sentences.
7. What is your opinion on the topic? Explain why you hold this opinion, identifying the evidence
on which you have based it in a paragraph.
8. Primary sources: Choose three of the primary sources to analyze. Explain how each one impacts
your thoughts about the topic. You can list them and explain each in a three or more sentences.
9. Choose one of the Discussion Questions at the end of the article to answer in a paragraph or
two.
In addition:
• “Paragraph” means you should develop each response effectively and thoughtfully with rich
supporting detail.
• Cite your sources with in-text citations when you borrow the ideas or exact words of a source.
Use the last name of the author of the main article to cite sources from the main article in-text
citations. For the primary sources, you will typically use the title of the primary source in your in-
text citation. The most important thing is that you acknowledge your sources in some way!
• Be sure to revise and edit your responses before submitting your assignment!
• Submit your assignment as a Microsoft Word document ( or x file) or a PDF.
• Find the template in the journals module to use if you need it.
Evaluation
Your entry or entries will be evaluated based on the following:
• Responses to each question include the appropriate amount of detail.
• Content borrowed from sources is cited correctly with in-text citations.
• Grammar, punctuation, and spelling meet academic standards and do not interfere with
meaning or present distractions to the reader.
S.H. Salois
HST 103
Page 1 of 3
Issues & Controversies in History Response #2 Instructions
Step 1: Choose a topic.
Access the journal topics in Issues & Controversies in History by following these links:
1761 – 1812: Revolution and New Nation: https://ich-infobase-com.lib-
proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162080&view=grid
1813 – 1855: Expansion and Reform: https://ich-infobase-com.lib-
proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162121&view=grid
NOTE: If these links do not work for you, go to the Journal Assignments folder in our class and follow
the instructions there to access Issues & Controversies in History directly.
You may need to login to the library and
databases with your V number (include the
letter v before it and the letters JC after)
and your last name
Choose one topic from either the 1761-1812: Revolution and New Nation OR the 1813-1855:
Expansion and Reform index for your topic.
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162080&view=grid
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162080&view=grid
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162121&view=grid
https://ich-infobase-com.lib-proxy.jeffco.edu/ICH/Browse/ErasAndSubjects/18?IndexTypeId=22&IndexId=162121&view=grid
Page 2 of 3
Step 2: Identify the question.
Note the question included with each journal topic. For example:
The question for Boston Massacre is “Were British Soldiers or American Colonists to Blame?” You
will answer the question included with the topic of your choice.
Step 3: Read the materials.
Each topic includes the following menu on the right side:
Page 3 of 3
Step 4: Complete the assignment
Read all parts of the article, and then answer the following questions:
1. What is the question you are answering?
2. Briefly summarize the issue and the background in your own words in a paragraph.
3. Summarize the “case for” in your own words in a paragraph.
4. Briefly explain the evidence or arguments in the “case for” you think were most convincing and
why in a response of at least three sentences.
5. Summarize the “case against” in a paragraph.
6. Briefly explain the evidence or arguments in the “case against” you think were most convincing
and why in a response of at least three sentences.
7. What is your opinion on the topic? Explain why you hold this opinion, identifying the evidence
on which you have based it in a paragraph.
8. Primary sources: Choose three of the primary sources to analyze. Explain how each one impacts
your thoughts about the topic. You can list them and explain each in a three or more sentences.
9. Choose one of the Discussion Questions at the end of the article to answer in a paragraph or
two.
In addition:
• “Paragraph” means you should develop each response effectively and thoughtfully with rich
supporting detail.
• Cite your sources with in-text citations when you borrow the ideas or exact words of a source.
Use the last name of the author of the main article to cite sources from the main article in-text
citations. For the primary sources, you will typically use the title of the primary source in your in-
text citation. The most important thing is that you acknowledge your sources in some way!
• Be sure to revise and edit your responses before submitting your assignment!
• Submit your assignment as a Microsoft Word document ( or x file) or a PDF.
• Find the template in the journals module to use if you need it.
Evaluation
Your entry or entries will be evaluated based on the following:
• Responses to each question include the appropriate amount of detail.
• Content borrowed from sources is cited correctly with in-text citations.
• Grammar, punctuation, and spelling meet academic standards and do not interfere with
meaning or present distractions to the reader.
The Issue
The killing of five colonists by British soldiers on the night of March 5, 1770, ignited a
firestorm of protest in Boston. Calling the killings a “massacre,” colonists opposed to
the troops’ presence in the city denounced their actions as “savage” and “barbaric.”
Those who supported British authority in the colonies defended the soldiers, arguing
that the colonists had hurled stones and other objects at them and goaded them to
fire.
National Archives and Records Administration
On the snowy evening of March 5, 1770, a large crowd of angry Bostonians
confronted a lone British sentry in front of the Customs House on King Street.
As the crowd grew in both numbers and hostility, the beleaguered soldier called
for reinforcements from the nearby barracks. A small detachment of British
troops, led by Captain Thomas Preston, soon came to the guard’s aid. By this
point the crowd had turned into a hostile mob. Brickbats and other projectiles,
as well as taunts and threats, flew at the soldiers as they arrayed themselves in
a defensive line. One of them was knocked down on the ice by a club hurled
from the crowd. A shot rang out. Soldiers, with bayonets fixed, began to
skirmish with townspeople. More shots were fired. Confusion reigned, as shouts
and gunfire mixed with the blur of people running in every direction to create a
chaotic scene. Within minutes, the din subsided as the troops reformed their
line and withdrew to the barracks while the crowd dispersed. But five dead or
dying townsmen lay in the street. The argument between colonists and British
over the nature of colonial rights and liberties now had a body count. Quickly
the recriminations began, as Boston’s patriots—who labeled the events of the
Filed Under: Civil Liberties • Politics and Government • 1761-1812: Revolution and New Nation
Boston
“Massacre”
Were British Soldiers or American Colonists to Blame?
night of March 5, 1770, a “massacre”—and loyalists both realized their struggle
had entered a potentially grim new phase.
• Arguments that British Soldiers Were to Blame for the “Massacre”:
Many residents of Boston, Massachusetts, who opposed the troops’
presence from the beginning and thus were predisposed against them,
blamed the events of March 5 on the soldiers. The “Sons of Liberty,”
and others associated with Boston’s “patriot” faction, believed that the
soldiers’ decision to fire was indefensible. No matter how threatening
the crowd appeared, they argued, the use of weapons on unarmed
civilians ran counter to common decency as well as the letter of the
law. Furthermore, they believed, the King Street tragedy was the
inevitable outcome of the British government’s policies toward the
colonies over the last several years. New taxes and restrictions upon
trade had been levied on the colonists without their consent, violating
the colonists’ rights as Englishmen. The Sons of Liberty led the
resistance in Boston to these ominous new directives, organizing
public demonstrations and political remonstrances. The response of
the British authorities was to station troops in the city. In the patriots’
estimation, a “standing army” was nothing more than the instrument of
tyranny. Relations between townspeople and soldiers started poorly
and deteriorated rapidly. Critics of British policy argued that these
tensions were the logical result of an armed presence among a liberty-
loving populace. The events of March 5 were the natural outcome of
tyrannical policies and military provocation—a combustible mix among
people that zealously guarded their liberties. It was not a matter of if,
but rather when, violence would erupt.
• Arguments that American Colonists Were to Blame for the
“Massacre”: Boston’s loyalists—those who supported British
authority—were themselves horrified by the events of March 5, but
believed the real tragedy lay in the fact that they had been eminently
avoidable. The British guard was merely performing his duty at the
Customs House; it was the hostility and growing numbers of the mob
that escalated the situation. British officers, as well as civilian
authorities, had repeatedly implored the crowd to disperse. Rather than
obey, however, the townspeople—many of whom were drunk—seemed
bent upon provoking some sort of incident. Insolence and provocation
had marked the behavior of the patriot faction and the Sons of Liberty
toward His Majesty’s troops, traits that were on full display during that
evening’s chaos. When the crowd began hurling stones and other
objects at the solders, striking and injuring some of them, it was no
surprise that shots were fired. The troops were not part of some plan to
attack Bostonians, they were only acting in self-defense when faced
with a rapidly escalating threat to their lives. The real culprits were
those who instigated the menacing crowd, not the soldiers who found
themselves in a confusing and threatening situation and acted as
anyone would in those circumstances. The rabble-rousing tactics of
the Sons of Liberty, according to the loyalists, had sown the seeds for
this harvest of violence. The organizers of the unlawful resistance to
British authority were themselves culpable for the clash of March 5 and
the resulting deaths.
Background
The year 1763 marked the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, a signal victory for Britain over
its imperial rival, France. Americans throughout the thirteen colonies, including Bostonians,
celebrated the triumph in which they believed they had played a significant role. Postwar
expectations were optimistic. Colonists believed the expulsion of France from the North
American interior would open the long-coveted lands of the Ohio River Valley to English
settlement, easing the overcrowding in New England. The heavy taxes levied by individual
colonies to finance the war effort were no longer necessary, and colonists assumed their
financial burdens would now be considerably lighter. The colonies’ economic picture had
seldom been this bright, as local farmers and merchants saw their incomes skyrocket from
the demands of the wartime market. But this rosy climate was short-lived. The British
government found itself facing an enormous financial crisis, as the imperial debt reached
unprecedented levels from financing a global war against France. Native Americans led by the
Ottawa chief Pontiac rose against the British in the Ohio Valley, a rebellion which took nearly
two years to suppress. George Grenville, prime minister of Great Britain, implemented a new
colonial policy with the goal of producing the much-needed revenue to both service the British
debt and pay for the continuing military presence needed in the colonies. Grenville’s logic was
simple: The war had been started in America and fought to defend the American colonists,
thus they ought to bear their fair share of its costs.
Legislation reflecting this logic quickly issued from Grenville’s ministry, through Parliament,
and to the colonies. The Proclamation of 1763 issued by King George forbade settlement
west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to prevent future clashes between Europeans and
Natives and thus obviate the need for a military presence in the Ohio Valley. Beginning with
the 1764 Revenue Act—commonly known as the Sugar Act—Grenville reversed the tenor of
the past century of British commercial legislation. Prior to 1763, its aim had been to regulate
colonial trade. Now, however, the primary purpose of these measures was to extract revenue
from colonial commerce. This distinction was a crucial one, and it alarmed many colonists
who feared the economic implications of this increased taxation. Adding to colonists’
trepidation was the commitment to renewed enforcement of the notoriously lax system of
customs collection. New taxes, combined with toughened collection measures, were the
heart of Grenville’s revenue program.
The Sugar Act reflected this new emphasis through its tough anti-smuggling measures.
Targeting molasses imports, the law affected New England more than any other region, given
the importance of rum distillation in its economy. Those accused of illegally importing
molasses—or not paying the proper duty—would be tried for smuggling in an Admiralty Court.
This was a clear break with long-held precedent, which allowed for accused smugglers to
receive jury trials in Boston, the capital of Massachusetts, and no local jury would convict for
smuggling, given its prevalence and importance in the city’s commerce. Admiralty Courts,
however, had no jury, and the nearest one to Boston was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 400 miles
away. Thus, would-be smugglers (of which Boston had many) now ran a far more significant
risk of legal and financial penalties than before, and were deprived of a jury trial—which was
commonly assumed to be a fundamental right of English citizens. Customs collectors also
made use of Writs of Assistance, which were wartime customs measures designed to clamp
down on illegal trade by their grant of extraordinary powers of search and seizure to customs
officials. Their continued use in peacetime further rankled Boston’s mercantile community.
Coming on the heels of the dismaying Proclamation of 1763, the tougher customs measures
surrounding the Sugar Act seemed an ominous portent to many Bostonians.
Colonists protesting the Stamp Act.
Passed by the British Parliament in 1765,
the Stamp Act aimed to raise revenue by
requiring colonists to purchase stamps for
a wide array of items. Colonists
condemned the law, and after widespread
protest, Parliament repealed the Stamp
Act in March 1766.
Library of Congress
Concerns over more vigorous revenue
extraction and increasing threats to colonial
liberties reached a crescendo with the Stamp
Act in March 1765. Designed to produce
revenue by requiring a tax stamp to be
purchased for a variety of paper goods
(ranging from legal documents to newspapers
to playing cards), the law sparked furious
reaction throughout the colonies. Its
opponents argued that the Stamp Act
represented “taxation without representation.”
English political tradition held that taxes
could be levied only by bodies that
represented “the people,” and thus
possessed their consent. Because
Parliament contained no representatives from
the thirteen colonies, they contended, laws
such as the Stamp Act violated this
fundamental right of all Britons. Protests
against the law ranged from the formal—
newspaper editorials, petitions from colonial
legislatures, and the resolutions of a “Stamp
Act Congress” which convened in New York
City—to more unofficial, but more powerful,
expressions of popular discontent. Mob
action against officials identified with the act’s
enforcement erupted throughout the colonies,
and many of the agents charged with
executing the Stamp Act resigned their posts
under pressure before the law even took
effect on November 1, 1765. In Boston, crowd
action reached an even higher intensity. In
late August, effigies of stamp agents were
hung from a large oak on Boston Common—
dubbed the “Liberty Tree”—which became
the gathering point for a large mob that
destroyed several buildings identified with
loyalists. The structure intended to serve as
the stamp office was torn down, its boards
providing kindling for a raucous bonfire
celebration. Massachusetts lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson, seen by the Stamp
Act’s opponents as the chief representative of British authority in the colony, barely escaped
his residence before it was destroyed and its contents looted by the crowd. Given the scope
of colonial resistance, it was clear to the Grenville ministry that enforcement of the Stamp Act
would be problematic, and it proved a dead letter from the start. Parliament repealed the law
in March 1766. In the din of colonial celebration that ensued, another measure—the
Declaratory Act—which accompanied the Stamp Act’s repeal passed virtually unnoticed. But
the Declaratory Act’s assertion that the colonies and their people were subject to
Parliamentary authority “in all cases whatsoever” signaled that the debate between the
colonies and Britain over taxation and governance was far from over.
It was in Boston, Massachusetts, that this debate would unfold most visibly. During the furor
over the Stamp Act, a group calling itself the Sons of Liberty emerged, and the hand of its
leadership was evident in both the August 1765 crowd actions and the continuing resistance
to the authority of the colony’s executives. These executives—Governor Francis Bernard and
Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson (also chief justice of the colony’s supreme court)—and their
allies found themselves facing a growing segment of the town’s population that seemed to
grow more obstreperous, defiant, and politically radical by the day. In the aftermath of the
Stamp Act’s repeal, the Sons of Liberty and the “patriots” who followed them possessed both
brimming confidence and a sense of momentum.
The Troops Come to Boston
As the debate over taxation, representation, and the rights of Englishmen continued between
Britain and its colonies, so too did the struggle for power in Boston between the Hutchinson-
A vigorous advocate of tightening imperial
control over the colonies, Chancellor of the
Exchequer Charles Townshend drafted a
series of laws in 1767 known as the
Townshend Acts that raised taxes on
many products colonists imported from
England.
Joshua Reynolds
Bernard loyalists and the Sons of Liberty, led by the prominent artisans and skilled
propagandists Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, along with James Otis, a noted lawyer and
politician. The lower house of the colony’s legislature became the hotbed of support for the
Sons of Liberty faction; Samuel Adams was elected House clerk in 1766. The House
struggled against the “Tories,” as loyalists were called, for supremacy in Boston and in the
colony at large. For two years following the Stamp Act’s repeal, the loyalists were able to
take advantage of a lack of controversy to win back converts from the town’s mercantile
community. As the Sons of Liberty—also called the “Whigs”—struggled to maintain the
momentum gathered in the protests of 1765, there was a growing sense that the danger to
English liberties posed by Grenville’s legislative program was fading. The Grenville ministry fell
out of power in 1766, and many colonists interpreted this political shift as a vindication of
colonial principles.
The Massachusetts standoff was interrupted
by a new series of laws from Parliament, the
Townshend Acts of 1767. Named for their
author and chancellor of the exchequer
Charles Townshend, a vigorous advocate of
tightening imperial control, the laws sought to
produce revenue, further reform customs
collection, and solidify British authority over
the recalcitrant colonies. A new Board of
Customs for the colonies was created, based
in Boston, and charged with administering
the collection of tax revenue throughout the
colonies. Some of this revenue would go to
pay the salaries of imperial officials, formerly
paid by the colonial assemblies, thus placing
these officials beyond colonists’ economic
control. These reforms were necessitated by
the range of new import duties the
Townshend Acts placed on numerous
commodities that were significant parts of
colonial commerce, such as glass, lead,
paper, paint, wine, and tea. This beefed-up
system would accomplish two important
objectives: The necessary revenue would be
collected, and the way in which it was
collected would reinforce British political
authority over the colonies. In the post–
Stamp Act climate of political suspicion,
colonists reacted swiftly and vehemently, as
the Townshend Acts seemed to display a
continued British willingness to deprive the
colonists of their liberties. Throughout the
colonies, political and economic resistance flared as pamphlets and editorials proliferated,
boycotts were urged, and rioters took to the streets.
Citizens of Massachusetts took the lead in this resistance, and Bostonians led the
resistance in Massachusetts. In early 1768, after several weeks of debate, the colonial
assembly issued a “circular letter” to other colonial legislatures that declared the Townshend
Acts destructive to colonial liberties in both their provisions and the fact that colonists were
not represented in Parliament, and urged the colonies to ignore the law. This open defiance
was too much for British officials, and colonial governors were ordered to dissolve the
assemblies if they threatened to endorse the Massachusetts missive. Governor Bernard was
ordered to demand a repeal of the circular letter and to dissolve the assembly should it
refuse. As expected, the Massachusetts lawmakers refused, and thus Bernard dismissed the
legislature. Outside the channels of formal politics, broad-based popular movements arose,
including one led by the Boston radicals, to boycott British goods—that is, refuse to buy
products imported from Britain—until the acts were repealed. Around the same time the
circular letter was issued, the Boston Town Meeting voted its approval of a nonimportation
agreement that was subsequently endorsed by more than two dozen towns throughout
Massachusetts.
The Sons of Liberty played a prominent role in orchestrating protests against the Townshend
Acts, including the popular demonstrations that enforced nonimportation. The pressures of
the crowd were more then enough for many reluctant merchants to abandon their sale of
British manufactures in the name of patriotic resistance to tyranny. As this pressure
increased, however, popular protest assumed a more menacing cast to Boston’s loyalists.
Law and order were under siege, they believed, when businessmen were subjected to the
whims of “king mob” and its violent agenda. Many loyalists, including Lieutenant Governor
Hutchinson himself, began to privately express the need for increased police power on the
part of the government, perhaps even from the military. Governor Bernard, however, resisted
calls for troops, believing that the introduction of British soldiers into Boston would exacerbate
already dangerous levels of tension in the city. Bernard’s hesitance was overcome, however,
by repeated threats of harm to customs officials in the city and their resulting fears for the
safety of their persons and families. These threats seemed to materialize in convincing
fashion on June 10, 1768. Customs officials in Boston Harbor had seized the sloop Liberty,
owned by prominent merchant John Hancock, suspecting that it carried a cargo of smuggled
Madeira wine. Shortly thereafter, a sizable crowd attacked the customs officials guarding the
ship, locked them in the customs office, and forcibly unloaded Hancock’s cargo. The threats
uttered by the crowd to the customs commissioners convinced them that they were no longer
safe in Boston, and they took refuge at Castle William, a harbor fortification safely outside of
town.
The Liberty riot was the last straw for Governor Bernard. Writing to the British ministry—as he
was making plans to resign his position and return to England—Bernard called for troops to
be sent to Boston in order “to rescue the Government out of the hands of a trained mob.” The
ministry needed no convincing, having already received numerous pleas from the customs
commissioners for military support over the past several months. Thus, at twelve noon on
October 1, 1768, the first soldiers of the two British regiments sent from Halifax under the
command of General Thomas Gage disembarked from their vessel in Boston Harbor and
began to march into town.
Escalating Tensions
The soldiers’ arrival in Boston did not precipitate the bloodbath that many on both sides of the
conflict feared it might. Part of the reason for this was the significant show of force that
General Gage’s soldiers made, marching in formation with fifes and drums blaring to their
barracks near Boston Common. It was one thing to declaim against British authority, or to
participate in the harassment of unpopular customs officials and their informants—it was
another matter entirely to demonstrate against British authority under the watchful eye of two
regiments of His Majesty’s Army. By late fall 1768, 4,000 British regulars were billeted in
Boston. This was far more than a token force: These 4,000 soldiers were encamped in a city
whose population totaled only 20,000 people. Given the strength of the British military
presence, the Sons of Liberty and patriot partisans adopted a wait-and-see attitude, though
verbal and written denunciations of the troops’ presence in the city erupted frequently.
Particularly busy was Samuel Adams, the driving force behind Boston’s resistance, who
penned numerous letters to government officials in both the colonies and England as well as
a spate of newspaper editorials denouncing the presence of a “standing army” in Boston.
[See Colonial Fears of a “Standing Army”]
Colonial leader Samuel Adams played an
important role in pre-Revolutionary Boston.
His incendiary newspaper articles and
political activism both before and after the
“massacre” helped stir up support for
American independence.
John Singleton Copley/Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston
Adams’s masterstroke appeared on October
13, 1768, with the first issue of A Journal of
the Times. The Journal was a chronicle of the
depredations supposedly visited upon
Bostonians by the “despicable,” “bloody-
backed” redcoats, who, according to the
Journal’s sensational reportage, never missed
an opportunity to assault or steal from the
innocent townspeople, especially women.
[See Articles, A Journal of the Times, 1768,
1769 (primary source)] Lieutenant Governor
Hutchinson decried Adams’s propaganda,
insisting to correspondents that “Nine tenths
of the Journal is either absolutely false or
grossly misrepresented.” But protests of this
type did not quell the ardor of the Journal’s
contributors, which included Adams, Otis,
and other notable Sons of Liberty. Each
week, they composed a number of lurid
accounts of the soldiers’ bad behavior (most
of them were indeed exaggerated to some
degree), and sent them off to be printed in
New York, from where the Journal would be
distributed throughout the colonies, as well
as to England itself. Even though much of its
material was only loosely based in truth, the
Journal was an effective instrument of
propaganda that served to convince other
colonists that what was occurring in
Boston—the oppression of everyday citizens
by a tyrannical “standing army”—was of
import to all the colonies, and that
Bostonians were on the front lines of the
struggle for English liberties in the face of an
arbitrary and corrupt regime.
In Boston itself, the Journal of the Times was only the most visible reflection of increasing
tensions. While the Sons of Liberty were able to keep opposition to the troops’ presence
stoked to a fever pitch, their other major initiative—a nonimportation agreement to protest the
Townshend Acts—was fizzling in the face of merchants’ reluctance to subscribe to such an
arrangement. Sensing that cracks were showing in their coalition, Adams and other
opposition leaders attempted to suppress accounts of how ineffective the nonimportation
agreement had become. Out of these efforts came mob attacks on two Tory newspaper
editors in October 1769. One barely escaped a crowd threatening to kill him, while the other
ended up tarred, feathered, and paraded through the main thoroughfares of the city.
These assaults were illustrative of the increasing level of violence that had come to
characterize the clash between Patriot and Tory ideologies in Boston. A few weeks earlier, on
September 5, 1769, at the British Coffee House—a well-known Tory establishment in
Boston—a brawl broke out involving customs officer John Robinson and James Otis; Otis was
severely beaten, and within months he declined into dementia and insanity. The following
February, however, saw the most tragic outcome thus far. On February 22, 1770, Ebenezer
Richardson, a notorious and widely disliked customs informant, was attacked by a mob while
defending a merchant’s shop from their demonstration. Richardson fled to his house, and shot
at his pursuers from a second-story window. The bullet found 11-year-old Christopher Seider,
who died from his wound later that night. The Boston Radicals now had a martyr—young
Seider’s tragic death was blamed upon the feckless violence of the customs officials and their
informants. Richardson barely escaped being lynched on the spot and was arrested for
murder. Seider’s funeral was an elaborately staged affair, choreographed by the Sons of
Liberty and its radical leadership as an emotional rebuke to the Tories and their military
henchmen. Thousands of Bostonians lined the streets as Seider’s casket was carried past;
as a propaganda statement, the affair was a tremendous success. But, more ominously, the
trend over the last several months had been one of increasing violence. It was becoming
evident that collisions between representatives of “the people” and of governmental authority
were more likely to end in bloodshed than any other outcome. This was particularly the case
where British soldiers were involved.
“Massacre”
Tensions between troops and townspeople in Boston had increased along with the city’s
generally hostile tone throughout late 1769 and early 1770. In addition to the strong
ideological aversion many Bostonians had toward a “standing army” in their midst, there were
also more tangible reasons for friction between the two groups. The enlisted ranks of the
British army were filled with the dregs of society; drunkenness, carousing, and petty crime
accompanied the regiments when they came to Boston. The harsh discipline of army life
(petty offenses could bring dozens of lashes, for example), appalling to the townspeople, also
lent a general air of violence to the army’s presence. To supplement the meager pay of a
private soldier, many of the troops took part-time work. But jobs were scarce in late-1760s
Boston, and troops willing to work for lower wages became an irritating source of competition
for many of Boston’s lower classes, who felt the pinch of hard times and scarce wages. It was
hardly surprising that the ideological, social, and economic tensions that surrounded the
soldiers’ presence in Boston would boil over at some point. All that was needed was a
catalyst.
That catalyst came in the form of an ill-fated request for an outhouse cleaning. On March 2,
1770, several workers were braiding rope at John Gray’s ropewalks on the Boston wharf.
Cordwaining was the type of work that British soldiers often used to earn extra money, and
that day, Patrick Walker, a soldier in the Twenty-ninth Regiment, went to the ropewalks to
inquire about a job. One of the ropemakers asked Walker if he was looking for work, to which
Walker replied in the affirmative. “Well,” came the response, “then go clean my shithouse.”
From there, the exchange grew heated and eventually blows were exchanged. Walker
retreated to his barracks, but soon returned with several more soldiers. More workers came
from other areas of the ropewalks, while more soldiers came forth from the barracks, and a
general melee ensued. After a while, the soldiers were driven back to their quarters, where a
corporal managed to dissuade them from sallying forth once more. The crowd of dockworkers
was dispersed by a justice of the peace who lived nearby. But this anticlimactic end to the
fight did not signal a return to peace. Over the next two days, more confrontations between
townsmen and soldiers occurred throughout Boston. A general sense of unease pervaded the
city on the weekend of March 3–4 as rumors flew regarding a reckoning between townsmen
and soldiers to take place the following Monday.
Monday, March 5, was another cold day in what had proven to be a long winter in Boston;
over a foot of snow and ice lay packed on the ground, as the weather had been too cold for a
thaw. The cold temperatures were in decided contrast to the heated tempers that had been
on display in the town. Officers of the Twenty-ninth Regiment had written to Acting Governor
Thomas Hutchinson expressing their concern about the escalating violence shown toward
their men, but Hutchinson was not in a position to cool Bostonians’ tempers. While
Hutchinson and members of the Governor’s Council, a group of advisers elected by
lawmakers, deliberated, though, the Sons of Liberty had taken direct action. Over the
weekend, handbills had been posted along many of Boston’s streets, “signed” by members of
the British garrison, promising an attack on the townspeople. Clearly a forgery—why would
British soldiers publicly avow an impending attack on the town?—the broadsides still had
their intended effect, as tensions remained just below the boiling point.
The evening of the March 5 was clear and cold; the snow and ice on the streets reflected
brightly in the light of the moon in its first quarter. This made the convergence at King, Queen,
and Cornhill Streets at the Town House square an illuminated scene as Private Hugh White
took his post as sentry just outside the Customs House. While White stood shivering in the
cold, spending much of his time huddled in the small guardhouse, ominous portents began to
unfold. According to their later testimony, at about 8:00 P.M., several young men near Dock
Square were warned by a tall stranger in a wig and red cloak that the vengeful soldiers were
beginning to fan out in the streets and assault townspeople by hitting them with muskets and
cutting off their ears. Some of the men wandered toward a nearby tavern, but others went to
meet the soldiers. No one was able to identify the stranger, and his provocative efforts remain
one of the unexplained elements of that night’s events. Yet, given the climate created by the
last few days’ events, such provocation was probably not necessary to produce the type of
encounter which eventually ensued on King Street.
Private White’s shift as sentry quickly became an eventful one. A group of youths gathered
near his post, and it was not long before snowballs and chunks of ice began to whirl toward
him. This was not something White, or any of the other British soldiers, had not encountered
before. But that did not lessen the irritation of being pelted with icy projectiles on a cold
evening. White brandished his musket at the boys, ordering them to be on their way. The
boys refused, and began to hurl taunts as well as snowballs toward the hapless White. At
that moment, the bells at the First Church—across the square from White and his
interlocutors—began to toll. To Bostonians, the ringing of church bells at night meant that fire
had broken out somewhere in the city, and that the able-bodied were to turn out and help fight
the blaze. There was no fire that night, however; the pealing of the bells simply meant that
more and more townspeople were now hurrying toward King Street with a sense of urgency
and alarm. When they saw the confrontation between White and the crowd of boys, they
rushed to join.
As White watched in alarm, the throng before him grew in both its numbers and threatening
aspect. He sent a servant rushing up the street to the barracks where the remainder of the
guard detail was stationed and waited for reinforcements in what was becoming a more
untenable position by the minute. As the bells tolled, the crowd grew from tens to hundreds in
what must have seemed like an instant to the beleaguered White. Now, brickbats, clubs, and
cobblestones accompanied the snowballs and ice that were being thrown at the sentry as the
crowd grew even more belligerent. Taunts and catcalls emanated from its ranks: “Fire, and be
damned!” “The lobster dare not fire!” The crowd received much of its courage from its
assumption that the soldiers would be powerless to retaliate against them. It was well-known
that English law prohibited soldiers from firing upon civilians without the express order of a
civil magistrate. Thus, the members of the mob surging forward into the Customs House
square were sure that, despite White’s brandishing of his musket, he was powerless to fire
upon them, lest he be executed as well. What the townspeople ignored, however, was the
corollary to that injunction: Soldiers could not fire upon civilians unless expressly ordered,
except in cases of self-defense where their lives or health were immediately threatened. This
ignorance would have tragic results as the mob escalated its threats to the sentry, acting
under a mistaken belief in its invulnerability.
Reinforcements soon arrived to aid White. Departing from different locations, Captain Thomas
Preston and seven more soldiers both got to the square at about the same time. After an
unsuccessful attempt to march his party through the crowd back to the barracks, Preston
formed the eight soldiers in a defensive position between the sentry post and the Customs
House. Shouting for the crowd to disperse, Preston underscored the seriousness of his order
by telling his men to load their muskets and fix bayonets. The situation, by this point, had
deteriorated into absolute chaos. The church bells continued to ring, the crowd swarmed to
and fro throughout the square as men in the back clambered over others to get a better view
of the proceedings. The mob pressed even further toward the soldiers; challenging them to fire
or to put down their guns and fight, they struck at the musket barrels and bayonets with stout
pieces of wood. The cacophony could be heard for blocks, yet no civil official arrived at the
scene to restore order—not that any would have been successful in doing so.
The nervous and embattled soldiers faced a crowd of more than 300 to 400 Bostonians,
according to later testimony. With the situation growing worse, and no sense that relief was
forthcoming, the troops felt themselves to be in significant danger. Thus, it was not a matter
of if, but when, they would use their weapons to defend themselves. As the standoff
continued, someone in the crowd hurled a cudgel at the soldiers, hitting Private Hugh
Montgomery squarely in the face. Bloodied and dazed, Montgomery toppled to the ice from
the impact. As the enraged and frightened soldier regained his footing, he roared “Damn you,
fire!” and shot into the crowd. The shot rang out through the din, and for an instant, the action
seemed to pause. But the suspense quickly ended, and additional shots rang out from
Preston’s formation. Within a minute or two, the firing stopped as the soldiers began to reload
their muskets. The crowd, which had dispersed somewhat, began to reform as well. But
Preston, regaining his composure, ordered his men to lower their weapons and not to fire
under any circumstance. He quickly formed them into a line, and was able to march back to
the main guard house without opposition. When they arrived, Preston ordered the drummers
to beat a general alarm, which would form all of the soldiers in the city into their regiments,
and he deployed his entire regiment in front of the barracks. Clearly, he expected retaliation
from the townspeople. Only the arrival of Acting Governor Hutchinson was able to restore
order; he exhorted the crowd from the balcony of the Town House to return to their homes,
averring that the soldiers would be returned to their barracks as well. The violence was over,
but the town remained on edge, with townspeople seething, as one anonymous pamphleteer
wrote, over the “butchery” of the “Horrid Massacre” by the King’s troops.
When Preston marched his force away from King Street, he left behind four dead bodies and
six more wounded. One more man was mortally wounded in the confrontation, and had
crawled away from the scene only to die within a few hours. Four of those killed had been
participants in the various confrontations between troops and townspeople. Crispus Attucks—
also called Michael Johnson—was the first man to fall; the half-Indian half–African-American
was a well-known leader of one of the factions of street-fighting toughs that had escalated the
confrontation on that night. [See Who Was Crispus Attucks?] Another, Samuel Gray, was a
notorious brawler (and proprietor of the ropewalks where the fight between Patrick Walker and
the ropemakers had occurred three days earlier). James Caldwell and Patrick Carr were also
regular members of the Boston crowd, and had seen their share of fights with the British
troops. The fifth person killed was a young apprentice, Samuel Maverick, who was hit by a
ricocheting bullet as he fled the King Street imbroglio. The level of violence stunned townsman
and soldier alike. Yet things could have been much worse—Hutchinson soon found out that
express riders had stood ready to call for reinforcements from the countryside. The events of
March 5, as bloody as they were, might well have developed into a general clash between
colonists and soldiers where deaths would have been measured in the dozens.
Gravestone in the Old Granary Burial Ground in Boston of Samuel Gray, Samuel
Maverick, James Caldwell, Crispus Attucks, and Patrick Carr, all of whom died in the
“massacre” of March 5, 1770. Also buried here is Christopher Seider, an 11-year-old
boy—his name and age are incorrectly engraved—who was shot and killed by a
customs informant the month before.
Swampyank
Arguments that British Soldiers Were to Blame for the
“Massacre”
The patriots’ reaction to the events of March 5, 1770, was swift and condemnatory. Perhaps
nothing summed up the Sons of Liberty’s indictment of the British soldiers so thoroughly as
the engraving produced by silversmith Paul Revere—also a member of the Sons’ leadership.
With the title “The Bloody Massacre,” the engraving depicted an orderly line of smiling British
soldiers firing point-blank into an unarmed and docile crowd as their officer stood behind
them, sword raised in the traditional command to open fire. [See Paul Revere, “The Bloody
Massacre,” March 1770 (primary source)] A brief verse at the bottom of the picture reinforced
the message: “Unhappy Boston! See they Sons Deplore/Thy hallowed Walks besmeared with
guiltless Gore./While faithless P—–n [Preston] and his savage Bands/With murderous
Rancour stretch their bloody hands/Like fierce Barbarians grimacing o’er their Prey,/Approve
the carnage and enjoy the Day.” The point was clear: “barbaric” British soldiers had eagerly
slaughtered innocent Bostonians, and given the chance, would do so again.
Revere’s engraving was only the most visible expression of the widespread belief that the
soldiers’ firing into the crowd was no accidental occurrence. Of course, this argument went,
the conditions for such a tragic encounter had been created the moment the troops marched
into Boston in October 1768. The soldiers’ presence had turned Boston into a garrison town;
according to A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, an anonymous pamphlet
published in 1770, the very fact that a “standing army” had been placed in Boston “in time of
peace” was proof of the conspiracy against colonial liberties that existed in some quarters of
the British government, and was supported by minions in Massachusetts itself. [See A Short
Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston, 1770 (primary source)] By this logic, it was a
virtual guarantee that if the colonists continued to advocate for their liberties, the resulting
action would be heavy-handed and despotic—that’s what standing armies were for. The
“original sin” that produced the massacre then, was the introduction of soldiers into Boston in
the first place. For this, Governor Bernard, and then his successor Hutchinson, bore much of
the blame.
But long-term factors only told part of the story. For Boston’s anti-Tory partisans, disturbing
questions remained about the events of March 5. Why had Captain Preston ordered his men
to load their muskets with powder and shot? Crowds and troops had skirmished before; it was
not as if this was an unfamiliar situation for the guards. What had changed enough to order
the use of live ammunition? The law forbade British soldiers from firing upon civilians, except
with express permission from a civil magistrate, none of which had been given on March 5.
Preston’s decision to order his men to load and present their muskets seemed, in this light,
to be a fateful one that virtually guaranteed a tragic outcome. Many townspeople testified that
they had heard Preston give the order to fire before the first shot rang out, an accusation
which Preston steadfastly denied. But others argued that even if he had not ordered his men
to fire, there had been a sufficient interval of time between the first shot and subsequent volley
for Preston to have ordered his men to hold their fire and stand down. The fact that he did not
do so was, in this view, as damning as if he had ordered his men to shoot. In the climate of
outrage that followed the shootings on King Street, many Bostonians were convinced by
these arguments that the blood of innocent Bostonians lay squarely upon the soldiers’ hands.
Arguments that American Colonists Were to Blame for the
“Massacre”
Not all Bostonians saw things as the radicals did. While the events of March 5, 1770, were
certainly reprehensible and tragic, the label “massacre” hardly seemed justified. After all, the
mob that surrounded sentry Hugh White, and eventually his fellow soldiers, had become
increasingly menacing. Soldiers did not abdicate their right to self-defense when they placed
themselves under civilian authority. As Captain Thomas Preston asserted in the deposition he
gave on March 12, the mob itself was responsible for the escalation of events toward their
tragic climax. [See Captain Thomas Preston, Deposition, March 12, 1770 (primary source)]
John Adams, cousin of Samuel Adams and one of the lawyers who defended Preston during
his murder trial in October 1770, observed that the mob was no more than a “motley rabble of
saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tars.” At the trial,
witness after witness testified to the raucous actions of the crown and how it had baited the
soldiers. “People were calling them Lobsters, daring ’em to fire, saying damn you why don’t
you fire,” said Newton Prince, an African-American member of the South Church who was at
the Custom House Square that night. [See Boston Massacre Trials, Testimony, October 24–
30, 1770 (primary source)] “The People whilst striking on the Guns cried fire, damn you fire. I
have heard no Orders given to fire, only the people in general cried fire.”
Captain Preston and his men were faced with an increasingly ominous situation, Adams
asserted in his closing argument to the jury, as “the multitude was shouting and huzzaing,
and threatening life, the bells ringing, the mob whistling, screaming and rending like an Indian
yell, the people from all quarters throwing every species of rubbish they could pick up in the
streets” [See John Adams, Closing Argument in Preston Trial, October 27, 1770 (primary
source)] In such circumstances, could Preston and his men be blamed for feeling as if their
very lives were in danger? Even though the sentiments of John Adams (who would later serve
as U.S. president from 1797 to 1801) lay with the Sons of Liberty, he was compelled to
recognize the dangerous character of such a large, uncontrolled, violent mob.
Other defenders of the British took Adams’s arguments and extended them further: If the
mob’s visage was so threatening, what had gotten it that way? Numerous provocations by
townspeople against the soldiers—such as the events at Gray’s ropewalks on March 2—were
emblematic of the soldiers’ travails. Stationed in Boston to restore order from the reign of
“king mob,” the troops themselves became the target of the Sons of Liberty’s unlawful
demonstrations. The scurrilous Journal of the Times, defenders charged, added fuel to the fire
with its collection of half-truths, innuendos, and outright falsehoods. It seemed, Boston’s
friends of government believed, that the Sons of Liberty would stoop as low as necessary in
order to accomplish their seditious aims. Some took this argument even further, arguing that
the events of March 5 had been deliberately planned by the Sons’ leadership. Faced with a
flagging nonimportation movement and declining public support for their schemes, this theory
went, the Sons’ leaders—particularly Samuel Adams—sought to provoke a confrontation
between the soldiers and townspeople that would inflame public opinion and increase support
for the radicals. This was not as far-fetched as it might have seemed, the proponents of this
conspiracy theory argued. How else could one explain the spate of obviously false handbills
that had gone up throughout the city in the days before March 5, promising an attack by the
troops? Clearly, they were planted by the Sons of Liberty to inflame the populace against the
soldiers. And who was the mysterious red-cloaked figure who had harangued Bostonians in
the hours before the shootings, claiming that the troops were about town, beating citizens
with their muskets and cutting off their ears with cutlasses? Conveniently, he disappeared
before the crowd arrived on King Street—but perhaps his wild tales had inflamed that crowd
nonetheless. Additionally, who was it that began to ring the church bells when the
confrontation between Private White and the rowdy boys seemed about to wane? It was the
bells’ peals that led to the surge of people into the Customs House square, and thus the
tragic escalation of the situation. The soldiers’ defenders argued that these events could not
have been coincidence—they fit together too neatly to have been happenstance. Rather, they
reflected the existence of a larger plan to ignite a confrontation between townspeople and the
soldiers. Both groups were pawns in a larger scheme, therefore the soldiers could not be held
culpable for defending themselves in an increasingly dangerous situation over which they had
no control.
Outcome and Impact
On March 6, 1770, the day after the “massacre,” Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson called
an emergency meeting of the Governor’s Council, which was visited by a delegation led by
Samuel Adams. Speaking for the Sons of Liberty, Adams demanded that Hutchinson remove
the troops from the city, placing them instead at Castle William, out in Boston Harbor.
Adams’s demand presented Hutchinson with a dilemma—if he refused, the possibility for
further violence was very real; if he acceded, royal authority in Massachusetts would be
demonstrably prostrate before the Sons of Liberty and their trained mob. Hutchinson
attempted to sidestep these unpalatable alternatives by pointing out that he was not
authorized to remove the troops; only their commanding officer, Colonel William Dalrymple,
was. But Dalrymple then fell into the patriots’ hands. He offered to remove the Twenty-ninth
Regiment to Castle William, since it seemed to be the unit that most offended the
townspeople. Adams fired back that if Dalrymple was empowered to move one regiment,
certainly he could move two. Hutchinson called a recess until the afternoon, but the damage
had already been done; when the Council reconvened, arrangements were made to remove
both regiments of troops from Boston as a frustrated Hutchinson was powerless to undo the
damage done by Dalrymple’s concession to the radicals.
But Hutchinson was able to prevail in the other area of contention in the aftermath of the
“massacre.” Despite the urgings of Samuel Adams and his compatriots for an immediate trial
of Preston and his soldiers, Hutchinson realized that doing so would further inflame a town
already at fever pitch and virtually guarantee the conviction of Preston and his men for murder.
The ensuing spectacle of the hanging of a King’s officer was too much for Hutchinson to
contemplate, and he was able to delay the trial until October, allowing time for emotions to
cool on both sides. In the ensuing interval, the radical leadership also came to the conclusion
that the execution of royal soldiers would be counterproductive. Additionally, they feared, a
vigorous prosecution of Preston and his men would open the door for unflattering testimony
about the events of March 5 that would surely paint Boston’s citizenry in a negative light and
thus threaten the reservoir of sympathy and solidarity from other colonies for the Sons of
Liberty. Better to let things lie as they were, the Sons’ leadership decided, and preserve the
memory of the “massacre” in the public consciousness as it had already been shaped by the
patriots.
Thus, it was not surprising that two prominent Boston patriots—John Adams and Josiah
Quincy—were selected to defend Preston and the eight British soldiers, all of whom were
charged with murder. Aided by a lackluster effort from the prosecution, Adams and Quincy
were able to both prevent damaging testimony from emerging during the trial in the fall and
win the acquittal of Preston and most of his men. Two privates were convicted of
manslaughter—a lesser charge than murder—but the court permitted both to “plead clergy” (a
legal custom dating from medieval times that allowed them to escape the death penalty,
though they were each branded on the thumb to keep them from exercising that right again).
With these verdicts, the Sons of Liberty were able to present Boston as a place where justice
prevailed, even in the most controversial of cases, as well as avoid making any British
martyrs out of the “Boston Massacre.”
Despite these objectives, however, Samuel Adams railed against the verdicts in a number of
anonymous editorials that decried the lack of justice against the “blood thirsty” soldiers who
had shown such “Savage barbarity” on March 5. But fewer colonists followed Adams’s lead
this time. In the aftermath of the “massacre” and the subsequent trials, the tensions in
Boston diminished significantly. Much of this reduction was due to the removal of the troops
to Castle William. Additionally, news had arrived in April 1770 of the repeal of almost all of the
hated Townshend Acts (save the duty on tea). But there was also a marked weariness toward
protest in the town, as if the violence of March 5 had sapped some of Boston’s will for
resistance. A calm settled into the town’s political climate, as Adams and his supporters
found it more and more difficult to stoke patriot resistance in the absence of tangible affronts
from the British. Hutchinson was relieved at what he hoped was a permanent rapprochement.
Subsequent years would prove this hope illusory, but for the immediate time being, the
aftermath of the “Boston Massacre” saw many Bostonians entertain sober second thoughts
about resistance to authority and the methods with which they had done so.
What if the British soldiers had not fired their weapons on
March 5, 1770?
The question is an intriguing one: what would have happened if Captain Thomas Preston had
not ordered his men to load their muskets, and thus no shots would have rang out on King
Street on that fateful night of March 5, 1770? Certainly, one of the most notorious incidents
on the road to the American Revolution might not have occurred at all, and the patriot cause
would have been denied one of its most valuable sources of effective propaganda. At first
blush, it seems that had the British not fired into the crowd of townspeople in the Customs
House square, tragedy would have been avoided and five lives would have been spared.
Perhaps this would have lengthened the process by which Bostonians—and “patriots”
throughout the American colonies—moved toward embracing independence, or would have
prevented it from occurring at all. But further investigation of this question throws doubt upon
that hypothesis. The clash of ideologies, and the rising level of violence that accompanied it,
involved larger issues of liberty and power, and would not have been stemmed if the Boston
Massacre had not occurred.
Indeed, if the British soldiers had not fired, it is far from certain that tragedy would have been
avoided. Given the size and state of the mob that confronted the soldiers, and the clubs they
wielded and projectiles they threw, the chances of injury and death for the soldiers were
significant. Indeed, Private Hugh Montgomery was wounded in the head by the cudgel that
knocked him to the ice. Captain Preston was knocked by another club in the arm, a blow that
missed his head only because his attacker slipped on the ice. As the church bells kept
ringing, the crowd kept growing in size. It is an eminently plausible assumption that
significant harm or death would have occurred for the British soldiers when the increasing
tempo and ferocity of attacks from the crowd is considered. Perhaps, then, the “Boston
Massacre” would have been an appellation fixed on the events of March 5 by Boston’s Tories,
as they condemned the lawless “rabble” of the patriot movement for killing members of His
Majesty’s forces. Whether or not the British soldiers fired their muskets into the crowd, the
events of March 5 were such that tragedy was almost guaranteed. The combination of
outnumbered soldiers, hundreds of riled townspeople, the absence of civil authority, and a
climate of tension and anger that had steadily been increasing was sufficiently volatile to
produce a violent outcome in some form. Even if violence had somehow been avoided, the
larger issues and debates that informed that volatile climate would have remained,
demonstrating their power to drive the colonies and Britain further and further apart.
Citation Information ( MLA )
Gannon, Kevin M. “Boston “Massacre”.” Issues & Controversies in American History. Infobase Learning, 1
Jan. 2014. Web. 20 May 2018.
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