Boston Massacre Essay

The true history of the Boston Massacre is shrouded by mystery, and most people’s interpretations of what happened are wrong. We generally think that the Boston Massacre was a flat out murder planned by the British; but that isn’t necessarily true. The generally accepted summary of what happened that night is that a group of British soldiers fired upon a crowd of unarmed colonists; killing 5 people and injuring a number of others. The Boston Massacre wasn’t really a massacre because it wasn’t a deliberate plan to slaughter a large number of people, but rather an accident by the British. While this accident is hard for the colonies to forgive, their mistake is hardly a massacre at all. The first misconception people have about the Boston Massacre

This is believed due to the spread of lies but also in part to Paul Revere’s engraving. In his engraving it is pictured that the British are in a uniform line, all with their muskets leveled at the crown and firing in unison; with their commander in front. This is also false according to witness accounts of what happened. It is truly believed that the firing started when one of the soldiers was hit with a stick; causing him to fire in retaliation. After this, with their commander behind them, the soldiers mistook the command fire and fired unorderly into the crowd. There is also the argument that maybe Captain Preston called for the command fire from behind his men, but this is also thought to be false. In the documentary “Unsolved History: The Boston Massacre”, scientists ran a test to see if it was possible for the soldiers to hear this command from behind. This test proved that it would have been impossible for the soldiers to hear the command from Preston and it likely came from the crowd; furthermore after the firing when the colonists came back to retrieve the fallen Preston knocked up his men’s muskets, asking them not to