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Why Did Adams Decide To The Boston Massacre

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On March 5, 1770 a street fight occurred between a mob of Boston citizens and British soldiers. The soldiers were increasingly unwelcome in Boston so the citizens threw snowballs, stones, and sticks at the group of soldiers who had been stationed here- the soldiers retaliated. The citizens were very outnumbered and the fight resulted in five deaths and six injuries from Boston. Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty named this event the Boston Massacre. The morning after, John Adams was sitting in his law office when Paul Revere revealed an engraving that showed Thomas Preston (captain of the British soldiers) ordering troops to fire at point blank range on the citizens. At this point, the anti-British fever in Boston was rampant. To calm the …show more content…

The answer to this question is not exactly known. Of course he knew that taking the case would be dangerous, and should his reputation be tarnished by an angry mob, his ambitions and economic future would be threatened. On the other hand, Adams didn’t think it would have been morally right to not give Preston a fair trial. Because of how great the tensions were over this conflict between Adams’ political and personal beliefs, he wrote in his diary that he was “never in more misery in my whole life.” However, John’s duty to the law was so strong that he later wrote that, “It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.” So when Preston’s trial started in October of 1770, Adams argued that Preston had not given the order to fire and that his soldiers were provoked by the crowd. Eventually, the jury acquitted Preston on the basis of “reasonable doubt”- this was the first time a judge had ever used this term. John Adams played an important part in these trials and ultimately made the decisions that were the best for his people. It was important the Adams decided to send the British back to their country to help disconnect the two relationships. The Boston Massacre was significant on a few levels. First of all, it further aggravated the relationship between the British and the colonists and helped to increase the growing calls for separation. The colonists became more and more bitter as the news of the Boston Massacre spread, helping enhance its’ importance in the steps leading toward the American

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(Daniel Cornwall). Based on this evidence, Captain Thomas did not speak to his men about firing on the colonists. Daniel Cornwall was only two yards away from Preston, enough to hear any words come out of the Captain’s mouth. Matthew Murray was looking at Preston when the shots were fired, but did not hear a command from Captain Preston. Captain Thomas Preston is innocent in the slaying of five Boston colonists based on the statements given by the witnesses.

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The evidence, from the 7 eyewitnesses, support that the colonists were the aggressors during the fateful evening of March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre. Some cited evidence proves it. Number one, “I saw the people throw snowballs at the soldiers and saw a stick 3 feet long strike a soldier upon the right” (Theodore Bliss). In other terms they were assaulting the soldiers with pieces of snow or ice at them, afterward they hit one of them with a 3 foot club. This shows that the soldiers didn’t shoot to murder, they shot in self-defense.

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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.

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According to this view Preston should be held responsible for the massacre in which he was supposedly at fault. My own view is that Thomas Preston did not give the command to his troops to open fire into the crowd of protesters and the verdict of innocent at his trial was very well justified. On March 5, 1770 a totality of five colonists was shot fatally while six others suffered from non-fatal

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RWDV says, “The jury acquitted Captain Preston on the basis of ‘reasonable doubt’ and acquitted six of the eight soldiers. Two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and thus escaped the death penalty.” Although there were some drawbacks, Adams was right to take the case and defend the Captain and his men. He demonstrated his dedication to the principles of justice and the due process of law, and he helped improve the image of the colonies. The Boston Massacre and its aftermath continue to serve as a reminder of the importance of upholding principles in the face of adversity and a testament to the power of justice and fairness in shaping

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The soldiers got scared and fired into the crowd hitting 11 people and killing 5. (Document 6) This event became an inspiration for propaganda against the Redcoats,British soldiers, like Paul Revere’s print of the event. Propaganda is misleading information to persuade others point of view and it did exactly that. Paul Revere’s print referred to this as the Boston Massacre, a massacre being a brutal killing of a bunch of people.

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The conflict quickly becoming known as “The Bloody Massacre” or “The Boston Massacre”; it fanned the flames of anger to the British, and was one of the main reasons the Revolution started. The eight British soldiers, and their captain, Thomas Preston, were all given trials, their lawyer being John Adams, future president. Adams claimed that the colonists were an angry, unorganized mob, that forced his clients to open fire on them. According to Adams, Attucks was leading the fight, though constant debate raged about how he was involved in it. Samuel Adams said that Attucks was simply “leaning on a stick” when the firing started.

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The british kept victimizing the colonist and they finally provoked them and the tension bubbled into violence. The boston massacre had a result of five deaths which were all colonist. The reason

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On the night of March 5, 1770, A major conflict between the American Colonists and British soldiers arose on King street. The British were taxing the Colonists, and the Colonists were protesting and boycotting against the taxes creating tension between the two sides. Since this happened, the British soldiers are the ones to blame for the Boston Massacre. The British Soldiers are responsible for the Boston Massacre According to the Committee of Boston, (Sam Adams, John Hancock and more…) “ This is without warning of their intention and killed 3 on the spot.”

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In the famous engraving based on the Boston Massacre, by Paul Revere, the engraving illustrates the conflict tension between the colonists and British officials during the major taxing acts. The image setting encompasses a late afternoon, on King Street. The image displays British soldiers firing into a crowd of civilians, murdering three, and injuring two. The British have the advanatge of weaponary, and auhtority, giving the illusion the soldiers are guilty of assault, by the viewers point of view. An important detail to point out is the colors represented by the soldiers versus the colonists.

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he infamous street fight that took place in Boston, Massachusetts is referred to as The Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. The riot started when a few young boys began to throw stones and rocks at British soldiers who were guarding the Customs House. The crowd around the boys started to grow larger and larger, and then people from the crowd begun to join the boys, throwing ice at the soldiers and taunting them. The soldiers then fired, killing five colonists.

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The Boston Tea Party disrupted this period of calm. In December 1773, a group of patriots took over three ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The harsh Tea Act imposed by the British caused this action. Two years later, the British began their march to Lexington and Concord to arrest patriot leaders and seize their weapons.

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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

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Another way the British violated the natural born rights of the colonists for their benefit was the use of standing armies. The reason behind standing armies was to protect colonies from violence such as the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party. Following the Boston Massacre eight soldiers were arrested and charged with murder. All eight soldiers were Defended by lawyer and future American president John Adams, six soldiers were acquitted, while the other two were convicted of manslaughter and given reduced sentences. Finally, Revere's engraving was not accurate, Revere captures the idea that the British were the ones who caused the massacre, when in reality the Colonists cornered British troops and antagonized

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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.

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