183 The Boston Massacre at 250 + This Week in US History

This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the Boston Massacre on its 250th anniversary. In particular, we learn about the stories of two of the five men killed in that famous clash, and why we know their names today.  

And we also take a look at some key events that occurred this week in US history, like the 1807 law that ended the US participation in the African slave trade, the controversial election of 1876, and the Bloody Sunday clash that occurred in Selma, Alabama 55 years ago. And birthdays, including

March 2, 1904 Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss
March 3, 1847 inventor Alexander Graham Bell
March 4, 1888 football legend Knute Rockne

Feature Story: The Boston Massacre at 250

On March 5, 1770 – 250 years ago this week - British troops stationed in Boston found themselves face to face with a jeering crowd of men. The soldiers had been sent to rescue one of their number who had been cornered by the crowd near the Customs House. Bostonians hurled epithets, as well as snow and ice, at the soldiers, but there was little about the incident to suggest that blood would soon flow.  That changed when one of the soldiers fired his musket – likely by mistake.  Immediately his fellow soldiers, thinking an order to fire had been given, opened fire on the crowd, killing five and wounding six more.

The Boston Massacre, as the incident became known, did not come out of nowhere. Tensions had been rising steadily in colonial cities like Boston at least as far back as 1765, the year the British government imposed the Stamp Act to compel the colonies to pay some of the costs of their defense by the British military during the recently concluded French and Indian War. The colonists, having grown accustomed to little British interference in their affairs for most of the eighteenth century, protested the act and the many more that followed. Although the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, Parliament followed it with the Townsend Acts of 1768 which also imposed taxes and fees.  This act likewise touched off protests and acts of vandalism in Boston. It also led to a boycott of British goods that was organized by the Sons of Liberty. In response to these disturbances, the British government sent 2,000 troops to Boston to maintain order.  For a city of just 16,000 residents, 2,000 soldiers represented a major show of force and intimidation by Parliament.

Not surprisingly, Bostonians treated the soldiers with scorn from the very start. Minor altercations on the streets between citizens – usually young tradesmen and dock workers – and soldiers occurred frequently. By early 1770, tensions were running high. In early March several brawls broke out between workers and soldiers, fueling rumors of an impending crackdown by the soldiers on Sons of Liberty activity and a plan to cut down the Liberty Tree in South Boston.

This was the essential background to what led to the events of March 5, 1770. The “Boston Massacre,” as the more zealous patriots termed this clash, enraged colonists from New Hampshire to Georgia. This fury was stoked by skilled propagandists who quickly wrote and distributed a pamphlet titled, “A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre.” As the title indicates, they framed the incident not as one marked by confusion and miscommunication, but rather one where the British soldiers acted with malice and intentionally murdered the five victims. Paul Revere then added the final touch – an engraving that purported to show what happened on the night of March 5, 1770. It shows a crowd of well-dressed and well-behaved Bostonians on the left being shot – as if by firing squad – by a tightly organized line of British soldiers on the right. Both the pamphlet and image circulated widely throughout the thirteen colonies.

In Boston, officials moved quickly to prosecute the soldiers.  The commander of the British soldiers, Captain Thomas Preston, and eight of his men were arrested and charged with murder. Samuel Adams, a leading figure in the Sons of Liberty movement, led the prosecution.  His cousin John Adams defended the soldiers – not because he sympathized with British rule, but rather because he believed the defendants deserved a fair trial. Despite raging public hostility toward the defendants, John Adams succeeded in demonstrating that all the conflicting eye-witness testimony meant that the defendants could not be found guilty. Preston and six soldiers were declared not guilty, while two others were convicted of manslaughter but were soon released. 

And soon, despite all the fury and angry talk against “British oppression,” the city of Boston returned to calm, as did the rest of colonial America. The five victims were buried in the Granery cemetery and then kind of forgotten. And here’s where things got interesting. Many decades later – long after the American Revol