Boston+Massacre

http://www.masshist.org/revolution/massacre.php
 * Boston Massacre**


 * The Boston Massacre**

Introduction

In June 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which levied import duties on articles including tea, lead, glass, paint, and paper and established a Board of Customs Commissioners for America to be stationed in Boston.

Bostonians protested the import duties by encouraging nonimportation and nonconsumption movements in the colonies.

In February 1768, the customs commissioners asked Parliament to guarantee their safety as they carried out their duties in Boston.

Troops began arriving in October of that year. Many Bostonians resented the presence of the standing army in their town, and patriot leaders made concerted efforts to feed the population's animosity toward the soldiers.

As the nonimportation movement falters in January and February of 1770, some Bostonians take it upon themselves to discourage merchants from selling British goods. Importers' stores are vandalized and customers bullied.

On 22 February, **eleven-year-old Christopher Seider is slain as irate customs informer Ebenezer Richardson fires into a crowd**. Patriots ensure that Seider becomes a young martyr in the war against import duties.

By the winter of 1770, **civilians are clashing more and more frequently with the soldiers** of the Fourteenth and Twenty-ninth Regiments, the last troops remaining in Boston. (Other regiments had been previously relocated.)

After a series of clashes between soldiers and workers at John Gray's ropewalks during the weekend of 2 March, Bostonians are predicting additional trouble.

On the evening of 5 March, a **lone sentry** posted in front of the Customs House is hassled by a group of young men. As the crowd swells, **Captain Thomas Preston** leads seven soldiers from the Twenty-ninth Regiment to reinforce the sentry, but he cannot persuade the crowd to disperse.

Amidst the noise and confusion, **shots are fired**; three civilians are killed and two more are mortally wounded.

Within hours of the episode, Captain Preston and his men are in jail, and townspeople are demanding that the troops be removed from Boston. Newspapers scramble to report the news of the tumultuous week and its capstone event.

Tories and patriots immediately blame each other for the confrontation, and both sides begin collecting depositions to support their points of view.

The Tories strike first, and their account and depositions are sent to England on 16 March. Not content to let military officials talk for him, Preston speaks out from his jail cell.

Patriot leaders, meanwhile, stage their own propaganda attack. A town-appointed committee drafts a narrative implying that the incident was the result of a sinister plot.


 * Paul Revere** markets an engraving that vividly depicts a bloody massacre, while others commemorate the "tragical scene" in verse.

Patriot leaders call for an immediate trial, but **Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson**, knowing that townspeople are demanding an eye for an eye, hopes to push the trials into the summer. The trials are ultimately delayed until fall, but in the intervening months, Richardson is tried in the death of young Seider and found guilty of murder.


 * John Adams**, Robert Auchmuty Jr., and Josiah Quincy Jr. are retained to defend Preston and his men. Robert Treat Paine and Samuel Quincy (brother of Josiah) will prosecute. Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, also chief justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, declines to preside at the trials. Benjamin Lynde serves in his place.

Preston's trial opens on 24 October 1770, and a few days later the jury reaches a surprise verdict: not guilty. Preston's men are tried separately beginning 27 November 1770. Adams prepares a complicated defense, and six of the soldiers are found not guilty; two others are found guilty of manslaughter but escape the death penalty.

Quiet settles over Boston following the trials.

Writing under the pseudonym "Vindex," **Samuel Adams** attempts to retry Preston and the soldiers through a series of newspaper articles, but his writings fail to rouse public sentiment as he had hoped.

Adams does succeed in turning 5 March into a day of mourning, and commemorative orations are delivered in Boston each year through 1784. Years later, John Adams looks back at the events of 1770, believing that justice had prevailed.


 * DOCUMENTS**:


 * A. A Young Martyr**

On the morning of 22 February 1770, a sign bearing a single word -- "Importer" -- appears in front of Theophilus Lillie's North End shop. Drawn by the prospect of a scuffle, a group of young men and boys gathers to taunt Lillie's customers. Ebenezer Richardson, a known and despised customs informer, attempts to topple the sign and disperse the crowd, but they pelt him with dirt and sticks and chase him back to his nearby home. Barricaded in his house with mariner Richard Wilmot, Richardson retrieves a musket and fires through a broken window, mortally wounding eleven-year-old Christopher Seider (Snider). Four days later, patriot leaders, eager to implicate the much-loathed customs commissioners in Seider's death, stage a spectacular funeral procession for the young martyr.

To examine all four pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, 5 March 1770.

Questions to Consider

1. Why did so many people attend Seider's funeral?

2. One of the Latin inscriptions on Seider's coffin is Innocentia nusquam tuta (Innocence is nowhere safe). Why do you think that patriots selected this particular inscription?

3. According to the newspaper article, who is going to raise money for a monument to Christopher Seider? What is the significance of this particular group erecting a monument to the eleven-year-old boy?

Further Exploration

4. Draw a picture of the funeral scene.

5. What is the connection between Christopher Seider's death and the Boston Massacre? Read some additional documents on the Boston Massacre for more clues.


 * B. A Tumultuous Week in Boston**


 * British soldiers arrive in Boston** in the fall of 1768 to guard wary customs officials.

Patriot leaders, whipping up hostility against the troops, publish inflammatory reports about their activities.

Despised, young, and far from home, the soldiers suffer low wages and poor housing conditions. Confrontations between soldiers and townspeople grow more frequent and more violent as time passes.

On 2 March 1770, soldier Patrick Walker, looking for a little extra money, asks for work at John Gray's ropewalk. Rudely treated, Walker fetches his comrades and returns for a fight. Rumor has it that additional trouble will take place on Monday, 5 March.

That evening, a lone sentry posted in front of the Customs House on King Street suddenly finds himself assaulted with snowballs and insults from a swelling crowd. The ensuing chaos reverberates throughout the motherland and her American colonies.

To examine all four pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of The Boston-Gazette and Country Journal, 12 March 1770.

Questions to Consider

1. As you read the newspaper article, create a detailed timeline of the events of 2-8 March 1770. Leave room on your timeline to add additional events that you may read about in other news stories or accounts.

2. On the morning of 6 March, Bostonians have a very specific request for Lt. Gov. Hutchinson. What is it? How does Hutchinson respond to this request?

3. Column four of this news story includes a note from Thomas Preston addressed to the people of Boston. What does it say? Why do you think he would write such a note?

Further Exploration

4. Using a dictionary, **find a definition for the word "massacre**"? Do you think that this event meets the definition of a massacre? Use evidence from the newspaper article to support your argument.


 * C. Tories Strike First**

In the days following 5 March, Lieutenant Colonel William Dalrymple orders his officers to collect depositions from individuals who had witnessed the events in King Street.

To instill calm, British soldiers are moved from their barracks in town to Castle William, three miles out in Boston Harbor.

The customs commissioners, fearing for their safety, flee Boston.

On 16 March, Commissioner John Robinson sets sail for London, carrying with him a packet of military depositions. The thirty-one testimonies, which reach England before those collected by patriots, are eventually published in London, prefaced by a narrative of the event. Not surprisingly, the narrative refutes testimony published in the patriots' pamphlet, A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre.

Questions to Consider

1. According to the narrative published in this pamphlet, what specific incident sparked the confrontation on 5 March?

2. The authors claim that no shots could have been fired from the Customs House on the night of 5 March. What is their evidence?

Further Exploration

3. **Compare the narrative of this pamphlet with the narrative published in the patriot pamphlet**, A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre. What is the same in each narrative? What is different?


 * D. Preston Speaks Out**

The alleged offenders are imprisoned as Boston ceremoniously buries its dead.

Languishing in the town's dirty, crowded jail, Captain Thomas Preston knows that citizens are blaming him for his soldiers' actions.

Hoping to gain support in England (and perhaps secure a pardon from the king), Preston prepares his own account of the events in King Street, the "Case of Capt. Thomas Preston," which is spirited to London and published in the Public Advertiser in April 1770. By mid-June, the London newspapers make their way across the ocean to Boston, and printers begin republishing the narrative in local newspapers. Eagerly read, the account reignites Bostonians' passions.

To examine both pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of the Supplement to the Boston Evening Post, 25 June 1770.

Questions to Consider

1. According to Preston, why did townspeople gather at the Customs House on the evening of 5 March 1770?

2. How does Thomas Preston describe the behavior of Bostonians and their actions toward his soldiers?

Further Exploration

3. Compare Thomas Preston's account of 5 March with accounts published in the newspaper or in pamphlets. What is the same? What is different?


 * E. A Sinister Plot?**

Eager to share their own version of events with the government in Britain, Boston selectmen appoint James Bowdoin, Samuel Pemberton, and Joseph Warren to prepare an account of the King Street affair.

Their narrative -- together with an appendix containing ninety-six depositions -- is published as a pamphlet a few days later, and copies are sent to England to counter Dalrymple's military depositions.

Remaining copies are impounded. With the soldiers' trial anticipated in Boston, patriot leaders choose to flaunt their neutrality.

Surely they know, however, that even if the Narrative is not distributed in Boston, it will have its effect in England and in versions reimported through other colonial ports. Robert Treat Paine uses the pamphlet presented here as he prosecutes Thomas Preston and his soldiers; Paine's notes appear in the pamphlet's margins.

Questions to Consider

1. In the first few pages of the narrative, the authors clearly place the blame for the massacre on a particular group--which group? What examples do the authors give to support their claim that this group is responsible for the massacre?

2. Who is listed as being killed or wounded?

3. Review some of the testimonies printed in the Appendix section. Identify 3-5 examples of the soldiers' threats and forewarnings that witnesses claim they overheard prior to the evening of 5 March. Do their testimonies imply that the events of 5 March were planned?

4. Who is the intended audience for this narrative? How might the narrative's publication affect public opinion about the upcoming trial?

Further Exploration

5. **Imagine that you were in Boston on 5 March 1770**. Write your own narrative of the evening's events based on details from this document and other documents on this website.


 * THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT**


 * F. A Bloody Massacre**

Visual representations of the confrontation on King Street appear soon after the event.

Powerful images of coffins and skull-and-crossbones punctuate news accounts and decorate broadsides. Artist Henry Pelham prepares the first, emotional but inaccurate, illustration of the episode.


 * Patriot artisan Paul Revere** obtains Pelham's print, which he begins to sell a few days later (without Pelham's permission or attribution).

By 1770, Revere is well known in Boston as a silver- and goldsmith as well as a skilled engraver. His satirical depictions of British colonial policies are known throughout the colonies. Like his earlier works, this hand-colored scene is intended to bring audiences around to Revere's point of view.

Questions to Consider

1. Describe the background scene in this engraving. What buildings do you see? What time of day is it?

2. How many soldiers do you see in the engraving? How would you describe their behavior?

3. How many townspeople do you see in the engraving? How would you describe their behavior?

4. What title does Revere give his engraving? Do you think it's an appropriate title?

Further Exploration

5. Read another news account, pamphlet, or broadside that tells the story of 5 March. Compare Revere's depiction of events with this other account. What is the same? What is different?

6. Take a look at some of the other documents related to the Boston Massacre. What kinds of symbols do they include?


 * SKIP THIS SECTION**


 * G. A "Tragical Scene"**

Everywhere they turn, those living in Boston (townspeople and soldiers alike) are encountering news, gossip, judgments, and propaganda about the events in King Street.

Purveyors of popular media enlist the services of illustrators and poets to sway public opinion. Set forth in rhyming couplets, "A Verse Occasioned by the late horrid Massacre in King-Street" quickly announces its point of view. In limping, anapestic lines, the broadside's versifier establishes a sense of the facts that will likely cause some to deplore, and others to applaud, his motives.

Questions to Consider

1. Trace the soldiers' actions, as recounted in the verse, throughout the course of early March 1770. Calculate how many offenses they have perpetrated against the colonists. Make a list of the offenses.

2. Do you think the author of this verse is an accomplished poet? Why or why not? What is your evidence?

Further Exploration

3. Compare the events recounted in the verse to a news account of the events surrounding the massacre. Identify that source and then make a list, in parallel columns, comparing the "facts" from the source and from the poem.

4. Have you ever heard of the expression "poetic license"? Do you think that the author of this broadside uses poetic license? What is your evidence?


 * H. An Eye for an Eye**

Patriot leaders, hoping to take advantage of popular outrage, demand that the soldiers be tried as soon as possible, but Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson knows that an immediate trial will virtually guarantee a guilty verdict.

A series of judicial illnesses and circuit court sessions delays the soldiers' trials until the fall of 1770.

As time passes, townspeople begin to wonder whether a trial will ever take place.

In iambic pentameter rhyming couplets, each punctuated with a four-beat endstop, this broadside alludes to the suspected reasons for the delay in setting a court date while calling for impartiality in meting out justice.

Questions to Consider

1. In what month does this broadside appear?

2. How does the author define justice?

3. What outcome does the author predict for the trial? Be sure to offer evidence for your conclusions.

4. What are some of the words and phrases used by the author to describe the soldiers? How does he/she describe the victims? How do you think these words and phrases influenced the townspeople reading this broadside?


 * THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT**


 * I. A Surprise Verdict?**

After many delays, the trial of Captain Thomas Preston begins on 24 October 1770.

Preston's lawyers know that their best defense is to prove that the soldiers fired into the crowd on the evening of 5 March without Preston's permission.

Boston loyalists ask Robert Auchmuty and Josiah Quincy to defend the captain and his men.

Both attorneys refuse to commit themselves unless **John Adams** agrees to participate as co-counsel.

Patriots are confident that even with the assistance of such fine attorneys, a jury will never reach a verdict other than "guilty."

To examine all four pages of this newspaper, please see the online display of The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, 5 November 1770.

Questions to Consider

1. With what crime is Thomas Preston charged?

2. How long does it take the jury to reach a verdict? What is their decision?

Further Exploration

3. **Imagine that you are living in Boston in 1770. How do you react to the verdict in Preston's trial? How do you think other townspeople feel?**


 * J. A Complicated Defense**

John Adams and the defense team are facing a serious dilemma: they must not only defend the soldiers, but the town of Boston as well.

Captain Thomas Preston has been found not guilty, and so it cannot be said that the soldiers fired on his orders.

If the lawyers argue that they fired in self-defense, however, Boston stands accused of harboring murderous ruffians.

On 27 November 1770, the trial of eight soldiers -- Corporal Williams Wemms, James Hartigan, William McCauley, Hugh White, Mathew Kilroy, William Warren, John Carroll, and Hugh Montgomery -- begins.

In his closing arguments, Adams concedes that while some of the soldiers may be guilty of murder, they cannot be distinguished from the innocent; they must, therefore, acquit all of the soldiers so that no one is wrongly convicted.

The jury delivers its verdict to the court on 5 December.

Questions to Consider

1. What is the verdict reached by the jury in the soldiers' trial?

2. Which two soldiers are punished for their participation in the tumult on King Street? What is their punishment?

Further Exploration

3. Do you agree with John Adams that it is more important to protect all of the soldiers (even if some of them are guilty) than to falsely punish even one innocent soldier? Why or why not?

4. Imagine that you are living in Boston in 1770. How do you feel about the verdict in the soldiers' trial?


 * K. Justice Prevailed**

John Adams autobiography, part 1, "John Adams," through 1776, sheet 12 of 53, 1768-1770

From the Adams Family Papers The transcription of this section of Adams's autobiography is featured on the Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive website.

Reflecting upon events some thirty years later, John Adams offers an interesting perspective on the "horrid massacre."

His sentimental, if not completely accurate, recollection of his participation in the trials reveals a great deal about his own sense of justice.


 * Adams never wavered in his belief that he did the right thing by defending the soldiers, although, as he explains in his autobiography, many Bostonians thought differently**

Questions to Consider

1. How does John Adams describe the night of 5 March 1770?

2. In Adams' opinion, who or what is responsible for the Boston Massacre? Why did it happen?

3. Adams' account was written a number of years after the Boston Massacre took place. How might the passage of time have affected his memory of events?