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Preston's Trial In Boston

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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 …show more content…

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

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The Sons of Liberty club sprang up to oppose the tax, so they burned the stamps and drove out all the stamp collectors. The Boston Sons of Liberty, headed by Sam Adams, was one of the most uncontrollable patriots in the country. Townshend Acts: •Named after the Chancellor Charles Townshend became the birth of six new laws. The motivation for these acts was to use the money to pay the salaries of governors and judges so that they would stay loyal to Great Britain. Mainly so that the governors and judges would punish the province of New York for failing to obey the Quartering Act.

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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On March 5, 1770, five people died at the hands of British soldiers in Boston, Massachusetts. Based on an analysis of the eyewitness testimonies, medical examiner’s reports, and the crime scene, it was determined that the soldiers did not commit murder, but rather acted in self-defense. Many eyewitness testimonies clearly describe the mob as threatening to the point where the soldiers felt they were in danger. Dr. John Jeffries, the surgeon attending to Patrick Carr, who died during the incident, states that Carr said the soldier who shot him “had no malice, but fired to defend himself.”

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The colonists are eneng more enraged. They have rebellious parades andgatherings to protest. Meanwhile, Britain is angry at the colonists, so to punish them, they keepthe Townshend act until the protests get extremely out of hand. The colonists continue to use theslogan “taxation without representation” frequently to show their anger for Britain. The nextevent, the Boston Tea Party, is also caused by unfair taxation.

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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.

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