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Boston Massacre

The Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street[1]) was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which nine British soldiers shot several of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. The event was heavily publicized as "a massacre" by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams.[2][3] British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 in order to support crown-appointed officials and to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation.

For the 2013 bombing, see Boston Marathon bombing.

Boston Massacre

March 5, 1770 (1770-03-05)

Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America

Five American colonists killed

Shooting, manslaughter

Montgomery, Kilroy

Murder

Montgomery, Kilroy:
Branding of the thumb

Amid tense relations between the civilians and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry and verbally abused him. He was eventually supported by seven additional soldiers, led by Captain Thomas Preston, who were hit by clubs, stones, and snowballs. Eventually, one soldier fired, prompting the others to fire without an order by Preston. The gunfire instantly killed three people and wounded eight others, two of whom later died of their wounds.[4]


The crowd eventually dispersed after acting governor Thomas Hutchinson promised an inquiry, but they reformed the next day, prompting the withdrawal of the troops to Castle Island. Eight soldiers, one officer, and four civilians were arrested and charged with murder, and they were defended by future U.S. president John Adams. Six of the soldiers were acquitted; the other two were convicted of manslaughter and given reduced sentences. The two found guilty of manslaughter were sentenced to branding on their hand.


Depictions, reports, and propaganda about the event heightened tensions throughout the Thirteen Colonies, notably the colored engraving produced by Paul Revere.

Aftermath

Investigation

Hutchinson immediately began investigating the affair, and Preston and the eight soldiers were arrested by the next morning.[38] Boston's selectmen then asked him to order the troops to move from the city out to Castle William on Castle Island,[37] while colonists held a town meeting at Faneuil Hall to discuss the affair. The governor's council was initially opposed to ordering the troop withdrawal, and Hutchinson explained he did not have the authority to order the troops to move. Lieutenant Colonel William Dalrymple was the commander of the troops, and he did not offer to move them.[39] The town meeting became more restive when it learned of this; the council changed its position and unanimously ("under duress", according to Hutchinson's report) agreed to request the troops' removal.[40] Secretary of State Andrew Oliver reported that, had the troops not been removed, "they would probably be destroyed by the people—should it be called rebellion, should it incur the loss of our charter, or be the consequence what it would."[41] The 14th was transferred to Castle Island without incident about a week later, with the 29th following shortly after,[42] leaving the governor without effective means to police the town.[41] The first four victims were buried with ceremony on March 8 in the Granary Burying Ground, one of Boston's oldest burial grounds. Patrick Carr, the fifth and final victim, died on March 14 and was buried with them on March 17.[43]

List of massacres in the United States

Timeline of United States revolutionary history (1760–1789)

. London: B. White. 1770. p. 3. OCLC 535966548. Original printing of a reply to "A Short Narrative…", supplying several depositions, including that of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, which were left out of the Narrative.

A Fair Account of the Late Unhappy Disturbance at Boston

. London: W. Bingley. 1770. OCLC 510892519. Original printing of the report of a committee of the town of Boston.

A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre

Adams, John (1962). Butterfield, L.H. (ed.). Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.  19993300.

OCLC

Allison, Robert J. (2006). The Boston Massacre. Beverly, MA: Applewood Books.  978-1-933212-10-4. OCLC 66392877.

ISBN

Antal, John (2013). . Casemate. ISBN 9781612002033.

7 Leadership Lessons of the American Revolution: The Founding Fathers, Liberty, and the Struggle for Independence

Archer, Richard (2010). . Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538247-1. OCLC 313664751.

As if an Enemy's Country: the British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution

(1974). The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-64160-0. OCLC 6825524.

Bailyn, Bernard

Cumming, William P.; Rankin, Hugh F. (1975). . New York: Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-1644-9. OCLC 1510269.

The Fate of a Nation: The American Revolution Through Contemporary Eyes

(1994). Paul Revere's Ride. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-508847-2. OCLC 263430392.

Fischer, David Hackett

Knollenberg, Bernhard (1975). . New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-02-917110-3. OCLC 1416300.

Growth of the American Revolution, 1766–1775

(2007). The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516247-9. OCLC 496757346.

Middlekauff, Robert

Miller, John (1959). . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804705936. OCLC 180556929.

Origins of the American Revolution

; Wesley, Dorothy Porter; Uzelac, Constance Porter (2002). William Cooper Nell, Nineteenth-Century African American Abolitionist, Historian, Integrationist: Selected Writings from 1832–1874. Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press. ISBN 978-1-57478-019-2. OCLC 50673509.

Nell, William Cooper

O'Connor, Thomas H (2001). . Boston: Northeastern University Press. ISBN 978-1-55553-474-5. OCLC 248309644.

The Hub: Boston Past and Present

Ross, Betsy McCaughey; McCaughey, Elizabeth P. (1980). From Loyalist to Founding Father: the Political Odyssey of William Samuel Johnson. New York: Columbia University Press.  978-0-231-04506-3. OCLC 479827879.

ISBN

Triber, Jayne (1998). A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere. Amherst, MA: . ISBN 978-1-55849-139-7. OCLC 171052850.

University of Massachusetts Press

Walett, Francis (September 1950). "James Bowdoin, Patriot Propagandist". The New England Quarterly. 23 (3): 320–338. :10.2307/361420. JSTOR 361420.

doi

Wheeler, William Bruce; Becker, Susan Becker; Glover, Lorri (2011). Discovering the American Past: A Look at the Evidence: To 1877. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.  978-0-495-79984-9. OCLC 664324291.

ISBN

Woods, Thomas (2008). Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877. New York: Associated University Press.  978-0-7614-7746-4. OCLC 302384920.

ISBN

York, Neil Longley (2009). "Rival Truths, Political Accommodation, and the Boston 'Massacre'". Massachusetts Historical Review. 11: 57–95.  40345980.

JSTOR

York, Neil Longley (2010). The Boston Massacre: a History with Documents. New York: Taylor & Francis.  978-0-415-87348-2. OCLC 695944958.

ISBN

Young, Alfred (Spring 2003). (PDF). The Public Historian. 25 (2): 17–41. doi:10.1525/tph.2003.25.2.17.

"Revolution in Boston? Eight Propositions for Public History on the Freedom Trail"

(1980). A People's History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-019448-2. OCLC 42420960.

Zinn, Howard

(1970). The Boston Massacre. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31483-0. OCLC 243696768.

Zobel, Hiller B

Hinderaker, Eric (2017). Boston's Massacre. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press.  978-0674048331.

ISBN

Reid, John Phillip (1974). "A Lawyer Acquitted: John Adams and the Boston Massacre". American Journal of Legal History. 18 (3): 189–207. :10.2307/845085. ISSN 0002-9319. JSTOR 845085.

doi

Ritter, Kurt W (1977). "Confrontation as Moral Drama: the Boston Massacre in Rhetorical Perspective". Southern Speech Communication Journal. 42 (1): 114–136. :10.1080/10417947709372339. ISSN 0361-8269.

doi

Zabin, Serena (2020). The Boston Massacre: A Family History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  9780544911154.

ISBN

The Boston Massacre Historical Society

Boston National Historical Park Official Website

at the trial of the soldiers, at Founders Online website. (Retrieved 10 December 2017.)

Adams' Argument for the Defense

Massachusetts Historical Society Massacre Exhibit

by the Bostonian Society, stagers of the annual reenactment

Boston Massacre investigative game