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- This article is about the 1770 incident. The Boston Massacre is also used colloquially to describe portions of the
Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.
Engraving by
Paul Revere that sold widely in the colonies
The Boston Massacre was an incident involving the deaths of five American
civilians at the hands of British troops on March 5,
1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the American Revolutionary War. A tense situation due to a heavy British military presence in
Boston boiled over to incite brawls between soldiers and civilians, and eventually led to
troops discharging their muskets after being attacked by a rioting crowd. Three civilians were killed at the scene, and two died
after the incident.[1]
Event
The incident started on King Street in the early evening in front of Private Hugh White, a British sentry, as he stood duty outside the customs house. A young wigmakers apprentice named
Edward Garrick called out to a British officer, Captain Lieutenant John Goldfinch,
that he had not paid his master's bill. Goldfinch had in fact settled his account and did not reply to the insult and continued
on his way. Garrick departed, then returned a couple of hours later with companions and continued quite vocal in his complaints.
He exchanged insults with Private Hugh White, who left his post and challenged the boy, then struck him on the side of the head
with his musket. As Garrick cried in pain, one of his companions, Bartholomew Broaders, exchanged insults with Hugh White. This
attracted a larger crowd. [2]
As the evening progressed the crowd grew larger and more boisterous with a momentary lull. The mob grew in size and continued
harassing Private White. A group of sailors and dockworkers came carrying large sticks of firewood and pushed to the front of the
crowd, directly confronting the sentry. As bells rang in the surrounding steeples, the crowd of Bostonians grew larger and more
threatening. Private White left his sentry box and retreated to the Custom House stairs with his back to a locked door. Nearby,
from the Main Guard, the Officer of the Day, Captain Thomas
Preston, watched this situation escalate and, according to his account, dispatched a non-commissioned officer and several
soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot, with fixed bayonets, to relieve White. He
and his subordinate, James Basset, followed soon afterward. Among these soldiers were Corporal William Wemms (apparently the
non-commissioned officer mentioned in Preston's report), Hugh Montgomery, John Carroll, James Hartigan, William McCauley, William
Warren and Matthew Kilroy.[3] [4] As this relief column moved forward to the now empty sentry box, the crowd
pressed around them. When they reached this point they loaded their muskets and joined with Private White at the custom house
stairs. As the crowd, estimated at 300 to 400, pressed about them, they formed a semicircular perimeter.
In the midst of the commotion, Private Hugh Montgomery was struck down onto the ground by a club. When he recovered to his
feet, he fired his musket, later admitting to one of his defense attorneys that someone had yelled "Fire". Captain Preston might
have said "Do not fire!". There was a pause, which various witnesses reported lasted from six seconds to two minutes. The
soldiers then fired into the crowd. Their uneven bursts hit eleven men. Three Americans—ropemaker Samuel Gray, mariner James
Caldwell, and a sailor of African American and Native American descent, Crispus Attucks—
died instantly. Seventeen-year-old Samuel Maverick, struck by a ricocheting musket ball at the back of the crowd, died a few
hours later, in the early morning of the next day. Thirty-year-old Irish immigrant Patrick
Carr died two weeks later.[5] To keep the peace, the
next day royal authorities agreed to remove all troops from the center of town to a fort on Castle Island in Boston Harbor. On
March 27 the soldiers, Captain Preston, and four men who were in the Customs House and alleged to have fired shots were indicted
for murder.
Depictions
Current view of the
Old State House, Boston, Massachusetts, the seat of British
colonial government from 1713 to 1776. The Boston Massacre took place in front of the balcony and the original site is marked by
a cobblestone circle in the square.
A young Bostonian artist, Henry Pelham, half-brother of the celebrated portrait painter John Singleton Copley, depicted the event. Boston silversmith
and engraver Paul Revere closely copied Pelham's image,
and thus often gets credit for it. Pelham and Revere added several inflammatory details, such as Captain Preston ordering his men
to fire and another musket shooting out of the window of the customs office, labeled "Butcher's Hall." Another discrepancy arose
because of how artist Christian Remick hand-colored some prints: the bright blue sky does not accord with the quarter moon or
dark shadows on the left side of the image.[6] Some copies
of the print show a man with two chest wounds and a somewhat darker face, matching descriptions of Attucks; others show no victim
as a person of color. The inflammatory, bright red, "lobster backs" and glowing red blood now hung in farmhouses across New
England. Revere had accomplished his goal of widely circulating an effective piece of anti-British propaganda. [7]
From the anonymous pamphlet:
THE HORRID MASSACRE IN BOSTON, PERPETRATED IN THE EVENING OF THE FIFTH DAY OF MARCH, 1770, BY SOLDIERS OF
THE TWENTY-NINTH REGIMENT WHICH WITH THE FOURTEENTH REGIMENT WERE THEN QUARTERED THERE; WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF
THINGS PRIOR TO THAT CATASTROPHE
[8]
"The General Court, at the first session after the arrival of the troops, viewed it in this light, and applied to Governor
Bernard to cause such a nuisance to be removed; but to no purpose. [Text missing]....the challenging the inhabitants by sentinels
posted in all parts of the town before the lodgings of officers, which (for about six months, while it lasted), occasioned many
quarrels and uneasiness.
"Capt. Wilson, of the 59th, exciting the negroes of the town to take away their masters' lives and property, and repair to the
army for protection, which was fully proved against him. The attack of a party of soldiers on some of the magistrates of the
town-the repeated rescues of soldiers from peace officers-the firing of a loaded musket in a public street, to the endangering a
great number of peaceable inhabitants-the frequent wounding of persons by their bayonets and cutlasses, and the numerous
instances of bad behavior in the soldiery, made us early sensible that the troops were not sent here for any benefit to the town
or province, and that we had no good to expect from such conservators of the peace.
It was not expected, however, that such an outrage and massacre, as happened here on the evening of the fifth instant, would
have been perpetrated....
"The actors in this dreadful tragedy were a party of soldiers commanded by Capt. Preston of the 29th regiment. This party,
including the Captain, consisted of eight, who are all committed to jail.
"Benjamin Frizell, on the evening of the 5th of March, having taken his station near the west corner of the Custom-house in
King street, before and at the time of the soldiers firing their guns, declares (among other things) that the first discharge was
only of one gun, the next of two guns, upon which he the deponent thinks he saw a man stumble; the third discharge was of three
guns, upon which he thinks he saw two men fall; and immediately after were discharged five guns, two of which were by soldiers on
his right hand; the other three, as appeared to the deponent, were discharged from the balcony, or the chamber window of the
Custom-house, the flashes appearing on the right hand, and higher than the left hand flashes appeared to be, and of which the
deponent was very sensible, although his eyes were much turned to the soldiers, who were all on his right hand..."
Trial of the soldiers
Boston Massacre grave marker
Captain Preston and the soldiers were arrested and scheduled for trial in a Suffolk County court. The government was determined to give the soldiers a fair trial so
there could be no grounds for retaliation from the British and so that moderates would not be alienated from the Patriot cause. A
problem was that no lawyers in the Boston area wanted to defend the soldiers, as they believed it would be a huge career mistake.
A desperate request was sent to John Adams from Preston, pleading for his work on the case.
Adams, who was already a leading Patriot and who was contemplating a run for public office, nevertheless agreed to help, in the
interest of ensuring a fair trial. Adams, Josiah Quincy II, and Robert Auchmuty acted
as the defense attorneys, with Sampson Salter
Blowers helping by investigating the jury pool.[9]
Paul Revere helped to supply the evidence.[citation needed] Massachusetts Solicitor General
Samuel Quincy and private attorney Robert Treat Paine, hired by the town of Boston,
handled the prosecution. To let passions settle, the trial was delayed for months, unusual in that period, and the
jurymen were all chosen from towns outside Boston.
Tried on his own, Preston was acquitted after the jury was not convinced that he had ordered the troops to fire. His trial
lasted from October 24, 1770 to October 30, 1770.
In the trial of the soldiers, which opened November 27, 1770, Adams argued that if the soldiers were endangered by the mob
they had the legal right to fight back, and so were innocent. If they were provoked but not endangered, he argued, they were at
most guilty of manslaughter. The jury agreed with Adams and acquitted six of the soldiers. Two of the soldiers were found guilty
of murder because there was overwhelming evidence that they fired directly into the crowd. However, John Adams used a loophole in
British Common Law and by proving to the judge that they could read by having them read from the Bible their crime was reduced to
manslaughter. Two privates were found guilty of manslaughter and punished by
branding on their thumbs. The jury's decisions suggest that they believed the
soldiers had felt threatened by the crowd. Patrick Carr, the fifth victim, corroborated this with a deathbed testimony delivered to his doctor.
Diary entry of John Adams concerning his involvement in the Boston Massacre trials
[10]
March 5, 1773:
(The third anniversary of the Boston Massacre)
"I. . .devoted myself to endless labour and Anxiety if not to infamy and death, and that for nothing, except, what indeed was
and ought to be all in all, sense of duty. In the Evening I expressed to Mrs. Adams all my Apprehensions: That excellent Lady,
who has always encouraged me, burst into a flood of Tears, but said she was very sensible of all the Danger to her and to our
Children as well as to me, but she thought I had done as I ought, she was very willing to share in all that was to come and place
her trust in Providence.
"Before or after the Tryal, Preston sent me ten Guineas and at the Tryal of the Soldiers afterwards Eight Guineas more, which
were. . .all the pecuniary Reward I ever had for fourteen or fifteen days labour, in the most exhausting and fatiguing Causes I
ever tried: for hazarding a Popularity very general and very hardly earned: and for incurring a Clamour and popular Suspicions
and prejudices, which are not yet worn out and never will be forgotten as long as History of this Period is read...It was
immediately bruited abroad that I had engaged for Preston and the Soldiers, and occasioned a great clamour....
"The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one
of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever
rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions
of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right.
"This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour
of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing
Armies."
Reenactment
Every year the Boston Massacre is reenacted on March 5, the anniversary of the event. The
reenactment is organized by the Bostonian Society
and takes place on the actual site of the massacre, directly in front of the Old State
House.
Impact
The Boston Massacre is one of several events that turned colonial sentiment against British rule. Each of these events
followed a pattern of Britain asserting its control, and the colonists chafing under the increased regulation. Events such as the
Tea Act and the ensuing Boston Tea Party were examples
of the crumbling relationship between Britain and the colonies. While it took five years from the Massacre to outright
revolution, it foreshadowed the violent rebellion to come. It also demonstrated how British authority galvanized colonial
opposition and protest.
Controversies
Several remarks have arisen about the Boston Massacre being labeled as a "massacre". The British soldiers were being harassed
by a drunken mob and felt their security was at risk. Also, apart from the soldiers whom were charged for manslaughter the
soldiers fired into the air as opposed to directly into the mob.[citation needed] The fact that five people died on the street is often used in the argument,
but there is no set number of murders to qualify it as a massacre.
The number of soldiers involved in the incident and the origin of the shots has also been controversial. The original
indictment issued on March 13 named twelve shooters and Capt. Preston [[1]], but only eight were finally tried in November 1770 [[2]]. Several of the witnesses stated that shots came from the Custom House and the number of dying and wounded
numbered eleven. The shots were not in unison, which allows the possibility of reloading the muskets, but this was never
substantiated.
Bibliography
- Reid, John Phillip. "A Lawyer Acquitted: John Adams and the Boston Massacre." American Journal of Legal History, 1974
18(3): 189-207. Issn: 0002-9319 Fulltext: in Jstor
- Ritter, Kurt W. "Confrontation as Moral Drama: the Boston Massacre in Rhetorical Perspective." Southern Speech
Communication Journal 1977 42(1): 114-136. Issn: 0361-8269
- Zobel, Hiller B., The Boston Massacre (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1970), ISBN 0-393-31483-0.
See also
References
- ^ Zobel, The Boston Massacre, W.W.Norton and Co.(1970), 199-200.
- ^ Zobel, The Boston Massacre, W.W.Norton and Co.(1970), 185-6.
- ^ Zobel,The Boston Massacre (1970), 187-196.
- ^ http://www.bostonmassacre.net/trial/trial-summary1.htm
- ^ http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/bostonmassacre/anonyaccount.html
- ^ http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter96/massacre.html
- ^ Ross, Jane (April 1975). "Paul Revere -
Patriot Engraver". Early American Life: 34-37.
- ^ Anonymous Account of the Boston Massacre: A Short Narrative of the
Horrid Massacre in Boston. Printed by Order of the Town of Boston. Re-published with Notes and Illustrations by John Doggett,
Jr., (New York, 1849).Site: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/bostonmassacre/anonyaccount.html
- ^ http://www.bostonmassacre.net/trial/trial-summary2.htm
- ^ Adams, John, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams,L.H. Butterfield,
Editor.(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1961.)
External links
