During the later half of the eighteenth century, tensions increased between the British and their American colonists. In the years following the Seven Years War, actions done by the British government, such as increased taxes and limitations on expansion and settlement of British territory, angered the British citizens of the American Colonies and resulted in violent protests and resistance to British rule. These scuffles and disputes between colonists and soldiers snowballed into the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. During the confrontation, over 200 Bostonian rioters violently assaulted nine British soldiers defending a position, who then fired unordered shots into the crowd, killing five and injuring six. After the massacre, these soldiers stood trial for the killing of citizens and received little to no punishment. The American colonists viewed the outcome of this case as unjust and wrong. However, the British soldiers retained innocence in the murder of the Bostonians, due to aggressive actions of the rioters, the legal right to …show more content…
Although they wielded the guns that killed five civilians, the trials of the British soldiers shows how they retained innocence in the murder of the Bostonians. If not for the violent assaults dealt by the Bostonians, the soldiers never would have needed to fire upon the rioters in order to defend themselves. However it went down, the Boston Massacre is one of the most overlooked events in world history. The spark of the Boston Massacre grew into the Revolutionary War. The anger of the outcome of the trial led colonists to events such as the Boston Tea Party, the First Continental Congress, and eventually the American Revolution. The riot caused by a wig maker's apprentice and the events that surrounded it started the fight for the creation of this country. Without the Boston Massacre, the great nation of the United States may not exist