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The handout includes testimonies from five diverse witnesses: a free Black man; a white woman who married a British soldier three weeks after the Boston Massacre; a white nightwatchman; a white man who was neighbors with one of the British soldiers standing trial; and, an enslaved man whose enslaver was a member of the Sons of Liberty.
Unless otherwise noted, the slide set consists only of black and white images. Pictures of the Revolutionary War. Order #AVA-18632SS00. 147 Slides. List of Select Audiovisual Records leaflets online
Mar 5, 2012 · The Boston Massacre in Black, White & Color. By daseger. Today, or rather tonight, marks the anniversary of the Boston Massacre of 1770, the most dramatic manifestation of the rising tensions in Boston accompanying the occupation of the city by British troops sent from London to enforce the Townshend Acts and make the colonists pay for their ...
The Boston Massacre, aka the Incident on King Street by the British, March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five male civilians and injured six others.
- Overview
- Boston, cradle of revolution
- The Boston Massacre
- What do you think?
On March 5, 1770 an angry altercation between British soldiers and American colonists inflamed passions that would eventually lead to revolution.
Even before the event that went down in history as the Boston Massacre, Boston, Massachusetts was a center of radical revolutionary ideas and sentiment. The colonists had endured years of conflict with British officials, and the number of people living in poverty and/or unemployed was growing in the city. With so many idle young men competing for work, there was bound to be trouble as British rule became more onerous.
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. When customs officials complained about the difficulties of collecting from disobedient colonists, Britain sent troops to impose order. The arrival of British soldiers in October 1768 heightened tensions in a city already on the edge of an uprising.
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. As a mob of angry townspeople encircled a British sentry shouting insults and throwing rocks and sticks, nervous Redcoats opened fire into the crowd, killing five Bostonians and wounding several others. One of the victims was Crispus Attucks, a free sailor of African and Native American descent who has gone down in history as the first casualty of the American Revolution.2
Local newspapers eulogized Attucks and the others as martyrs to British tyranny. Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, two of Boston’s most influential revolutionaries, proved adept propagandists. Revere is known for producing the most famous depiction of the incident—though in reality he merely copied the original engraving by young Boston-area artist Henry Pelham. The image was published in the Boston Gazette and circulated widely, stoking the flames of anti-British anger and revolutionary righteousness. Pro-British Loyalists promoted an alternate narrative, accusing agitators in the crowd of deliberately provoking the incident. Nevertheless, the radical narrative proved far more influential.3
The colonists did not want to give the British a pretext for retaliation, and so preparations were made to ensure a fair trial. A young lawyer named John Adams, despite his commitment to the revolutionary cause, agreed to defend the Redcoats, all but two of whom were acquitted.
Why do you think the incident in March 1770 happened in Boston and not somewhere else?
In your opinion, was the Boston Massacre truly a massacre? Who do you think was at fault for the incident?
How important was the Boston Massacre in the events leading up to the American Revolution?
[Notes and attributions]
A sensationalized portrayal of the skirmish, later to become known as the "Boston Massacre," between British soldiers and citizens of Boston on March 5, 1770. On the right a group of seven uniformed soldiers, on the signal of an officer, fire into a crowd of civilians at left.
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In this interactive image, students interpret Paul Revere’s famous engraving of the Boston Massacre. They learn about the figures shown in the engraving, including Crispus Attucks and Captain Thomas Preston, and consider who is not represented in the image.
