On the evening of March,5 1770, a small group of boys taunted a British sentry in front of the Bost Custom House. After enough torment the soldiers struck one of them with a musket and immediately after, a group of 60 people gathered around prompting the soldier to get help. Captain Thomas Preston and seven soldiers hurried to protect the sentry. Efforts to calm the crowd failed and when the crowd surrounded the crew retreat was impossible. One of the crew fired and the rest followed on what seemed to be a direct order from Preston leaving five dead and six injured.
The town of Boston had been uneasy even before the “Massacre”. Tension had been building up since the early 1760s because the town was affected by the forces of migration and change. With the new slate of taxes known as the Townshend Duties, people like Samuel Adams encouraged the townspeople to increase their remonstrates. In
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Results from the trial lead many to believe justice wasn’t served. Defensive attorney John Adams used tactics to create confusion in the minds of the jurors so they could not be certain what actually took place. This proved to be very effective. Adam noted the crowd had been harassing the soldiers and also attacked them. There was no reliable evidence to back this up and it was generally believed, even if Preston was found guilty, he would be pardoned anyway.
A member of the Boston 's Sons of Liberty and a silversmith, Paul Revere, helped stir exasperation against the British army by producing an inaccurate print of the Boston Massacre depicting British soldiers firing into an unarmed crowd. Revere’s reason for this was believed because of the government in London decided to impose a new set of tax laws. As a result, caused Revere’s items in his silver shop to be taxed. The image became one of the most influential pieces of the revolutionary
Colonist Perspective On the evening of March 5, 1770, five innocent civilians were brutally murdered in the streets of Boston at the hands of corrupt British Red Coats. Our brothers and sisters, we peacefully protesting the corrupt, British imposed taxation without our representation. Among those whose lives were taken was Crispus Attucks, a former Black slave. The brutality expressed by the British is foreshadowing for more restrictions and intervention to come. The only way we can defeat British corruption is by coming together as one under this pertinent cause.
“Getting Away with Murder: The Acquittal of Thomas Preston” Gentlemen of the Jury, I am here today to prove that Thomas Preston was indeed guilty of ordering his soldiers to fire at the angry mob of men. The night of the Massacre, in front of the Boston Custom House Preston and soldiers came to protect the sentry and found a crowd of a hundred angry citizens who were taunting the sentry. Jeering the British sentinel more and more by telling the sentinel to fire at them and throwing snow balls at them. But it was when the crowd was ordered to fire that lead to fatal blows.
In the early 1760’s, the tension between the people in Boston and the British soldiers started to grow until in early 1770, when the two groups reached their breaking point. On March 5, 1770, a group of men started intimidating a British soldier; he soon called for assistance but eventually the crowd had grown to practically one hundred people. Captain Thomas Preston and seven other soldiers arrived, trying to calm the situation down, but to no avail. A soldier fired into the crowd followed by the other soldiers firing soon after, resulting in five people being killed. Captain Thomas Preston happened to be arrested and charged with murder.
Some of the taxes that were implemented onto the Americans were the Sugar and Stamp act, Navigation act, Wool act, Hat act, the Proclamation of 1763, the Quartering Act, Townshend Acts, and the Coercive Intolerable Acts, (Document Five). Each one of these added more stress on the colonist persuading their final decision of starting a revolution. Not only did the taxes install hatred into the colonist but also events and actions that the British did harmed their cause. Those events included; the boston massacre, the French Indian war, Boston Tea Party, and many more, (Document four) As seen the British lead themselves onto the wrong path by trying to tighten their grip on the colonist but ended up hurting themselves when their actions added more fuel to the Americans fire.
The troops were put on trial defended by John Adams, but were tried and received little to no punishment. Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson had no choice but to retreat his troops to an island in the harbor due to the pressure that was caused after the trials. Just three weeks after the event, a man named Paul Revere conjured up a historical engraving of his depiction of the Boston Massacre, although very inaccurate. Revere’s engraving on that fateful day sparked outrage and spread quickly throughout the thirteen colonies. In accordance to American Independence, the Boston Massacre was the start of the American Revolution; the colonists strived for independence.
On March 5th, 1770, the event now known as the Boston Massacre took place, in which about 5 colonists were killed after soldiers opened fire on a riot. The event led to the engraving entitled "The Bloody Massacre" by Paul Revere. Revere was a well known silversmith and leader of Patriots, the group against the British Parliament, who had been taxing them and not letting them live in the areas they wanted to live in. The group called the Sons of Liberty was a group of Patriots who had held protests against the British taxation and boycotted many British goods in retaliation. The Boston Massacre occurred after a British customs official killed the 11 year old Christopher Seider, followed by a large funeral held by the Sons of Liberty.
What we know today as the Boston massacre was when the men of the British army fired their weapons at civilians that were on a riot. Many were killed in the firings, and this is all because of taxes by the government. They were known for their saying no taxation without representation, this blew up after British taxed their people after the French-Indian war, they were taxed for paper, tea, chocolate, just about anything. In the war there was a
At the village green of Lexington, on April the 19th, 1775, a shot rang out from an unknown shooter on an unknown side. This is as “The Shot Heard ‘Round The World.” To this day, no one is quite sure which side fired first, the British or the Colonists. I believe that the British fired first upon the Colonists.
In recent discussions pertaining to Thomas Preston, a controversial issue that has been recognized is whether he was innocent or guilty in the events of the Boston Massacre. On one hand, some people dispute that Preston was faultless. From this perspective, it is believed that he was not to blame for the actions of his troops when they opened fire into the crowd. They believe the bitter actions of the troops should not reflect onto Captain Preston. On the other hand; however, others argue that Preston was undeniably at fault as he gave the commanding orders to fire into the crowd.
Propaganda also played an important role in the process of mass hysteria. In Paul Revere’s famous engraving of the Boston Massacre, he depicts the British soldiers, also known as redcoats, shooting the helpless colonists (The Boston Massacre Engraving). This engraving became one of the most popular ones known throughout history because at the time, most colonists were illiterate and this image helped them to understand what happened. Mass hysteria was incorporated into both propaganda and crowd action, and this was only the beginning of the colonists’
The Boston Massacre was a pivotal moment in American history that occurred on March 5, 1770. A violent confrontation between British soldiers and colonists in Boston, Massachusetts, resulted in five colonists' deaths. The event played a significant role in the lead-up to the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the eventual independence of the United States. Therefore, to fully understand the impact of the Boston Massacre, it is important to analyze the history before and after this event. To understand how patterns, eras, political parties, and relationships shaped the 1800s I will be analyzing sources from the time of the event.
I believe the jury did the right decision in the case of the boston Massacre, I think Captain Preston was innocent and did not order his men to fire, but individuals soldiers may be guilty of murder. The Boston Massacre started in March 5th 1770 in boston and 5 men and boys died. It started in front of a Government office with a crowd of american colonists who were propagandising the british soldiers they were in a riot fighting against the soldiers who were acting in malice. The incident started when the crowd was provoking the soldiers, they threw snowballs and clubs at the soldiers. One of the soldiers named Montgomery was hit on the head with ice and fell to the ground after he got up and fired into the crowd.
There were many disagreements and because of those, many events were the cause of the American Revolution. These events included bloodshed by others, peoples rights weren’t enforced, individuals didn’t receive freedom, and our country was just not yet whole. Despite of the causes of why the road to Revolution took place there were effects afterwards. When American Revolution was over with the The Declaration of Independence came into place, treaties were signed, and the Bill of Rights. Now these effects/events were amazing, it helped our country tremendously.
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a “patriot”. They were throwing sticks, snowballs, and trash at a group of British troops. The loyalists got very annoyed with the patriots so they shot into the mob killing five. The riot began when around 50 colonists attacked a British sentinel. A British officer called in for additional troops
Tensions were high in Boston between the British and the Colonists. Between the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Britain was very upset with Boston. King George III, the Lord North- led British government and many of the British citizens were very upset and irritated when they found out that the Boston colonists had made “Tea with salt water”. Once the parliament heard of their escapade, they began thinking of a way to insure that there would be no more uprisings in the Massachusetts colony.