As we approach the semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary on the forming of the United States, here is a brief summary of issues and actions that led to the Revolution and the Revolutionary War … this is about the Boston Massacre.
After the Seven Years’ War had drained Britain’s coffers, the royal government imposed tighter controls over its North American colonies in order to raise revenues. The arrival of British soldiers in October 1768 heightened tensions in a city already on the edge of an uprising.
Over the next two years, Boston existed in a state of virtual British military occupation – one out of three men in the city was a Redcoat, a common nickname for British soldiers due to the color of their uniforms. Radical townspeople and idle young men harassed the soldiers, leading to numerous skirmishes and scuffles. (Khan Academy)
Conflicts between the British and the colonists had been on the rise because the British government had been trying to increase control over the colonies and raise taxes at the same time. (Library of Congress)
In March 1770, British officials ordered the removal of all occupants of the Boston Manufactory House – a halfway house for people living in poverty, those who were ill, and those who were homeless – so that a regiment of British soldiers could be garrisoned there. The Manufactory House’s homeless occupants put up a resistance, and the British backed down, but other confrontations ensued.
On March 5th, one such confrontation turned violent. On that cold, snowy evening in 1770, Private Hugh White was the only British soldier guarding the King’s money stored inside the Custom House on King Street. Private White came under threat of attack from Boston citizens after having an altercation with Edward Garrick.
Soon the town’s church bells rang signaling for more local citizens to come and observe the commotion.
Fearing for his life, White sent word to Captain Thomas Preston. Captain Preston soon arrived with six other armed men, Privates John Carroll, Mathew Kilroy, William McCauley, Hugh Montgomery, William Warren and Corporal William Wemms.
As the crowd continued to grow, Captain Preston ordered his men to load their muskets and then proceeded to tell the mob to disperse. The crowd continued to taunt the soldiers daring them to fire their weapons and throwing snowballs, ice and oyster shells. Private Montgomery was then struck by an object from the crowd and fell to the ground.
Once Montgomery recovered, he stood up and fired into the crowd without orders given to do so. One by one the other soldiers discharged their muskets. (NPS)
Nervous Redcoats opened fire into the crowd, killing five Bostonians and wounding several others. When the smoke cleared Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, and Samuel Gray lied dead in the street with Samuel Maverick mortally wounded, dying the next day and Patrick Carr dying two weeks later
It was initially referred to as the “Incident on King Street,” the “Bloody Massacre on King Street” and the “State Street Massacre.” Several decades later, and since, it has been called the “Boston Massacre.”
Boston Massacre Trial
The crowd strained forward in the Queen Street courtroom on October 17, 1770. Seven months had passed since the “horrid, bloody massacre” took place; but the passions of the people remained strong.
“Sons of Liberty” such as Samuel Adams and John Hancock had seen to that. They reminded the good citizens that the British soldiers were not welcomed, and that mobs had as much right to carry clubs as the soldiers had to carry loaded muskets.
But now the jury was set and the true drama was beginning. Only a fair trial would show the world that Massachusetts, and by association all Americans, deserved their liberty by an appeal to justice and not by the rule of a mob. Captain Preston had his doubts that a fair trial was possible. Yet there was something about his lawyer, John Adams.
Despite his hostility toward the British government, Adams agreed to defend the British soldiers who had fired on a Boston crowd. His insistence on upholding the legal rights of the soldiers, who in fact had been provoked, made him temporarily unpopular but also marked him as one of the most principled radicals in the burgeoning movement for American independence. He had a penchant for doing the right thing.
Adams seemed at home in the courtroom, like an experienced mariner navigating the shoals of a dangerous coastline. He had been able to impanel a jury from out-of-town, not a single Boston man among them and, Preston felt, the jury seemed uncommonly thoughtful for upstart colonials.
Following one of the first trials in American history to last for several days, even the frenetic crowd seemed exhausted. Testimony after testimony had been used to show both sides of the “massacre” story.
But as Adams said in his summary, “facts are stubborn things … if they [the soldiers] were assaulted at all … this was a provocation for which the law reduces the offense of killing, down to manslaughter …”
When the jury quickly returned with a “not guilty” verdict against Preston and the others, Adams felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders.
Adams would later describe his role as “the greatest service I ever rendered my country.” Why? In a town where British soldiers were hated, there had been a fair trial by jury. In a land where mobs could sway events, the world saw that justice and liberty were valued as the legal rights of all. (NPS)
The Boston Massacre is one of several pivotal events leading to the Revolutionary War, and ultimately, the signing of the Declaration of Independence. (NPS)
Click the following links to general summaries about the Boston Massacre:
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