Why Did The Boston Massacre Happen

1325 Words6 Pages

The American Revolutionary defined what our country is today and gave us our freedoms. Without these significant events throughout our American history we would not have our modern day society. The official start of the war was in 1775 at the Battle of Lexington and Concord when the first shots were fired. Although that was the official start, there was much more tension and build up beforehand. After the Seven Years’ War, Britain was in over their heads in debt and therefore they decided to raise taxes in order to help pay it off, but the colonists were not happy about that. The taxes that the British imposed on the American colonies were the main reasons why the revolution started and the colonies wanted to become their own nation. Throughout …show more content…

This so called massacre depicted that British troops fired at an unarmed crowd of innocent people, and therefore the colonists took that and ran with it. This was their chance to have a negative picture put on the British. Most of the news of the massacre was delivered from a very one sided point of view that greatly benefited the colonists (Adams). In the book “Boston Massacre” Sarah McGill states how Sam Adams wrote in his newspaper about the so called horrors of what the British soldiers did and angered the people of Boston making them revolt against the soldiers, eventually causing the Boston Massacre. The massacre was caused by the people tormenting the soldiers and throwing snowballs at them and eventually one soldier got hit so hard his gun fell and fired when it hit the ground. This accidental gunfire was an accidental signal to the soldiers and when they heard it, several others fired into the crowd of people. After this event the patriots of Boston were enraged with the King’s men and it built up more pressure before the real first shots of the Revolutionary war were …show more content…

The British surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781 was officially the major turning point in America’s war for freedom. The result of the surrender of Cornwallis would lead to the downfall of Lord North’s leadership and the conclusion of Britain attempting to reclaim the colonies (Middleton 370). French and American forces had overwhelmed the British and held them back so that they could not fire off many rounds. Foner explains that once news of the British surrender at Yorktown had been received in London, most people were not able to bare the war anymore and peace between the colonists and the King began to ensue(212). Two years after this monumental moment in the revolution, Americans and the British came together to sign the Treaty of Paris. This treaty gave the colonists the freedom they were fighting for and control of the entire region. The Treaty of Paris could possibly be one of the single most important moments in United States history. Without this treaty the result of the revolution may have been much different and could have affected the way our society is