Episode 13: The Massacre

In response to rioting and protests over the Townshend Acts, the British deploy four regiments to Boston, leading to a deadly shooting on March 5, 1770, a massacre that wounds a family. 

Featuring: Serena Zabin and John McCurdy.

Voice Actors: Anne Fertig, Grace Mallon, Evan McCormick, Adam McNeil, and Nate Sleeter. 

Narrated by Dr. Jim Ambuske.

Music by Artlist.io

This episode was made possible with support from Richard H. Brown and Mary Jo Otsea.

Find the official transcript here.

Help other listeners find the show by leaving a 5-Star Rating and Review on Apple, Spotify, Podchaser, or our website.

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Worlds Turned Upside Down is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Episode Transcript

Jim Ambuske (00:01):
This episode of Worlds Turned Upside Down was
made possible with the supportof Richard H. Brown and Mary Jo
Otsea. Learn how you can make agift to support the series at r2
studios.org,
The snow was deep and the nightwas cold and dark in Boston on
March the fifth 1770. AsBostonians and British soldiers

(00:22):
traveled streets paved withoyster shells, compacted snow
turned ice made for delicatewalking. Though new fallen snow
quieted their footsteps. Thestillness of the frigid air
carried sounds over a distance.From within her lodgings at the
Royal Exchange Tavern at thecorner of King Street and Royal

(00:45):
Exchange Lane, Jane Crothersheard a commotion outside. We
know little about Crothers’ lifebefore this moment. Perhaps she
worked at the tavern; she mayhave only recently arrived in
town. Surely, she felt a senseof anticipation, for in a few
weeks’ time, she would marryPrivate Joseph Whitehouse of the

(01:08):
14th Regiment of Foot. She wasbut one of many British
Americans who found and forged afamily in the British Army.As
"There is that bloody backed Sonof a Bitch. Let us go kill him."
Crothers ventured out into themoonlight to search for the
noise, she spied Private HughWhite of the 29th Regiment just
across the lane, standing guardin front of the Customs House on

(01:32):
King Street. White was 30 yearsold in 1770, a veteran of the
army for 11 years. He had takenthe king’s shilling in County
Down, Ireland, and joined thearmy in 1759, a decent option
for an unskilled lad like him. We can imagine White stamping
his feet to keep warm as hemanned the sentry box in his

(01:55):
blood red coat, the small cloudsof hot breath rising from his
face. The Customs House and theRoyal Exchange Tavern were just
down King Street from the TownHouse, the seat of the colony’s
royal government. The main guardhouse was just across the way.
As she approached White,Crothers may have noticed some

(02:19):
agitation. Earlier that evening,White had clubbed a wigmaker’s
apprentice named Edward Gerrishwith the butt of his gun, after
overhearing Gerrish hurl insultsat a British officer passing
nearby. The officer had ignoredGerrish’s taunts, not wishing to
inflame tensions that night;White did not have the officer’s

(02:43):
discipline or composure.Soldiers and civilians had lived
in an uneasy, sometimes brokenpeace in Boston since the fall
of 1768, when rioting andprotests over the Townshend Acts
compelled London to deployregiments to the town. Dismayed
by the new taxes on paper,paint, lead, glass, and tea, and

(03:06):
a new Boston-based customsdepartment to enforce them,
Bostonians had joined otherBritish Americans in publishing
protests, boycotting Britishgoods, and in some cases,
burning boats and destroyingproperty. By the summer of
1768, London had had enough. TheKing's ministers ordered

(03:28):
regiments from Halifax, NovaScotia to take up station in
Boston in hopes of restoringsome semblance of ordering good
government in His Majesty'scolony of Massachusetts Bay. In
Boston, the soldiers, many ofwhom came with their wives and
children, found crampedquarters, weary civilians and

(03:50):
the unenviable task of keepingthe king's peace in one of
British America's oldest towns.But in the months after their
deployment, some soldiers foundwives among Boston's women. Some
officers struck up friendshipswith the town's elite, and even
if Bostonians didn't wantsoldiers in the town, some who

(04:14):
led the resistance movement,like the merchant John Rowe,
were willing to charge the armyrent for their warehouses and
private rooms if the soldierswere going to be there anyway.
Even Private White had friendsin town. On the night of March,
5, 1770, not long before heclubbed the wig maker's

(04:37):
apprentice, he had exchangedpleasantries with a passing
resident asking after hisfamily. Even so occasional
brawls exchanged insults andperceived slights between
soldiers and civilians madeliving together a daily struggle
in a town that in the 18thcentury was all but an island.

(04:58):
When Crothersreached White athis sentry box, she asked him
about the noise she had heard.He said he didn't know what it
was. They may have heardshouting from nearby Brattle
Street, where soldiers andcivilians were scuffling and
exchanging loud words. As Whiteand Crothers talked sometime

(05:21):
around nine o'clock, a group ofBostonians gathered before them.
Just how many witnesses thatnight, men as well as women,
black as well as white, do notagree. It may have been 30
people. It may have swelledquickly to more than 200 what is
clear is that many of them werefurious at White for having

(05:44):
struck Edward Gerrish. And asthe crowd gathered, Crothers
claimed she heard someone in themob shout.
Bostonians began hurling oystershells, chunks of wood and ice
at White forcing him out of hissentry's box and back toward the
Customs House. He called to themain guard house for help. At

(06:09):
around 9:15, church bells beganto ring. To ring at such a
strange hour, could mean onlyone thing, the town was burning.
But as more Bostonians pouredout of their houses and taverns
to douse the blaze, they foundonly the heat of a growing mob
confronting Private White andthe soldiers who had come to

(06:30):
help him. Newton Prince, a freeblack businessman and member of
the Old South Church, heard thebells ringing. He ran out into
the street where he was told:

Unknown (06:40):
“[T]here was no fire, but something better, there was
going to be a fight. Some hadbuckets and bags and some Clubs,
I went to the west end of theTown House where were a number
of people. I saw Soldiers comingout of the Guard house with
their Guns and running down oneafter another to the Customs
house.”

Jim Ambuske (07:00):
Captain Thomas Preston of the 29th regiment led
a group of seven men to PrivateWhite's, aid maneuvering through
the growing crowd to join him infront of the Customs House. They
formed a defensive half circleat the corner of the building
with bayonets fixed and weaponsloaded as the insult,s ice, and
invective continued to rain downon them. Richard Palmes, a

(07:22):
merchant and member of the Sonsof Liberty who had been trying
to calm tempers that night, madehis way through the crowd to
Captain Preston. He asked theofficer if he intended to order
his men to shoot. "By no means,sir, by no means," Preston
replied, knowing he could notlegally act without a command
from civilian authorities.Private White pushed Jane

(07:44):
Crothers back out of the way

Unknown (07:47):
"and bid me go home or I should be killed."

Jim Ambuske (07:50):
Witnesses like Prince and Crothers claimed they
heard the mob daring thesoldiers to shoot.

Unknown (07:55):
“[D]amn you why don’t you fire."
Fire by God I'll stand by you.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
God damn you why don't you fire?

Jim Ambuske (08:02):
From the crowd, a white object emerged hurtling
towards Private Hugh Montgomery,whether it was ice, snow or a
chunk of birch bark, we'll neverknow. Montgomery was anchored on
the right side of the soldier'sdefensive arc. The object struck
the muzzle of his musket, and asMontgomery recovered his balance
and leveled his weapon, thecrowd saw the flash of the pan

(08:25):
and heard the sound of a shot.Some civilians fled. Some froze
in place, almost in disbelief atwhat had just happened. And then
mere seconds later, someoneshouted, "Fire."

(08:49):
I'm Jim Ambuske, and this isWorlds Turned Upside Down, a
podcast about the history of theAmerican Revolution. Episode 13:
The Massacre. In the monthsbefore the deployment of British
regiments to Boston in the fallof 1768 Boston merchants and
consumers had organized nonconsumption and then non

(09:12):
importation movements to protestthe Townsend acts. The colony's
House of Representatives calledon its sister provinces to
present a more united front inthe face of Parliament's
overreach and Bostoniansintimidated, chastised and
harassed customs officials whenthey tried to enforce the new
laws. In many ways, the rioting,bonfires, protests and effigies

(09:37):
were in keeping with long heldEnglish traditions of resisting
arbitrary power, Britons at homewere no less inclined to foment
civil disorder when theybelieved it was warranted. But
in the 1760s Britons on bothsides of the Atlantic had begun
to see troubling patterns ineach other's behavior a quest
for more centralized imperialrule in the one. And an

(10:00):
increasing penchant fordisobedience in the other when
the regiments deployed toBoston, however, many Bostonians
believed that the soldiersarrival transformed the port
town into an occupied city. Asthe colony's Provincial Council
complained to London in 1769colonists now lived "as if in an

(10:22):
Enemy's Country, it was a worldfar different from the one they
had imagined just a few yearsearlier.

Serena Zabin (10:33):
in the 1760s especially right after the Seven
Years War ended in 1763Bostonians, like most other
white colonists, wereextraordinarily thrilled to be
British. They thought they werepart of the shared glories of
the future. I'm Serena zabin.I'm professor of history at

(10:54):
Carleton College in Minnesota.One of the things that's really
just magnificent aboutBostonians is they imagine
themselves as partners in what'sgoing to be Britain's
spectacular empire. They've justkicked out the French from an
enormous part of North America.They have claimed a whole lot of

(11:15):
indigenous land. There are lotsof indications that there is
going to be more and more landand more and more glory. It
looks like a spectacular time tobe British and Bostonians are
using this language of familyand of marriage to say, we are
going to be your partner inthis. We can't wait. Super

(11:39):
excited

Jim Ambuske (11:40):
The imperial bliss soon lost its luster. With the
introduction of Stamp duties,and then the passage of the
Townshend Acts, Bostonians andother British Americans began
wondering about their place inthe British empire.

Serena Zabin (11:54):
Bostonians take it pretty personally. They feel
pretty betrayed. They think ofthemselves as people who gave a
lot to the Seven Years' War, whocommitted deeply to the Empire,
who were very loyal subjects.They saw themselves sometimes as
partners in a marriage, and allof a sudden they're being told

(12:15):
that they are like barely theboot black, that suddenly
they're just informed thatthey're supposed to come up with
these ways of paying taxes thatthey felt were unfair, partly
because they didn't have any sayin how they got put together.
It's clear to many Bostonians,and I'm gonna say not just the

(12:38):
wealthiest, most elite men whosit on the governor's council.
It is clear to people who readthe newspaper and people who are
neighbors with those who readthe newspaper that these taxes
are not just about collectingmoney, because the point of the
taxes and the way the taxes arebeing put together and are being

(13:00):
collected is clearly an attemptto centralize the British
Empire.

Jim Ambuske (13:08):
So, how did the arrival of British regiments in
1768 only deepen Bostonians’suspicions about the empire?
Where did soldiers and civiliansfind common ground in this
fraught moment? And how did thetensions between them lead to
that fatal night in 1770?Tobegin answering these questions,

(13:29):
we’ll head first to Ireland, torecruit some of the men and
families who would later deployto British America. We’ll then
sail west with the regiments,first to Halifax, and then south
to Boston, to eavesdrop onsoldiers and civilians adapting
to new lives in MassachusettsBay, before putting Captain
Preston and his men on trial, towitness how the shooting on King

(13:51):
Street became a massacre. Thedeployment of regiments to
Boston in the fall of 1768reflected the many different
threads that wove together thepeoples and places of Britain’s
Atlantic empire. Ireland was onesuch place. By the 1760s, the

(14:13):
English and then the British hadruled Ireland for centuries. For
the English, Ireland had been atraining ground for empire,
often with brutal results. Bythe mid-eighteenth century, it
was also becoming an importantsource of manpower for Britain’s
imperial ambitions. The Britishstationed regiments there as

(14:34):
part of regular troop rotations,holding them in readiness for
deployment elsewhere throughoutthe empire. They were also meant
to deter the perfidious Frenchfrom fomenting rebellion among
Irish Catholics against theirProtestant rulers. Here's Serena
Zabin:

Serena Zabin (14:53):
The 29th regiment of was an Irish Regiment, which
is to say most of its privatesare raised in Ireland. Most of
the officers are Scottish orScots Irish, but the privates
are Irish. They're primarilyfrom Protestant Ireland. At this

(15:13):
moment, it was illegal forCatholics to serve in the
British Army

Jim Ambuske (15:20):
Like Private Hugh White, Matthew Chambers joined
the 29th Regiment in 1759 as thefighting in North America during
the Seven Years’ War neared itsend. He too hailed from County
Down, not far from Belfast.Chambers was a tailor by trade,
but his willingness to enlist atage 19 suggests he saw few

(15:40):
prospects for himself in thenorth of Ireland.

Serena Zabin (15:43):
Enlistment as a private is lifetime, unless you
manage to somehow get out of it,either because you've been
injured, or there are someprivates who manage just to
legitimately get discharged. Butfor the most part, you've made a
lifetime commitment. A lot ofthe army is actually relatively
old. They are born in the 1730sor 1740s they're 30 or 40 at

(16:09):
this point, newer enlistees comelargely because there is a
regular paycheck. It's not verybig. It's often insufficient,
but for some Irish it is moresufficient than what they are
making as laborers on someoneelse's land in Ireland.

Jim Ambuske (16:29):
But the army wasn’t just recruiting men like Hugh
White or Matthew Chambers. In avery real sense, it was
recruiting their wives andchildren as well.

Serena Zabin (16:39):
One of the things that is fascinating about the
British army is that it's sounlike a modern, 21st century
army. We tend to think of themas pretty similar, except for
like, the materiel, but they'reactually completely different
institutions. The 18th centuryBritish Army was a family

(16:59):
institution. It was shaped withthe expectation that the men who
were part of it were going to bepart of a family that didn't
always work perfectly, but thearmy is an organization that
employs both men and women.Every regiment has a set number

(17:22):
of women who actually getrations and get pay to do some
of the work of the army. Thosewomen are almost entirely
married to the privates in thatregiment, very occasionally
their daughters instead, butthey're largely wives. There are
official rules about how manywomen are allowed to be paid as

(17:43):
part of any regiment? Much ofthe time, commanding officers
ignored those rules, because menwere likely to desert if their
wives were not allowed to bepart of the regiment that
they're traveling in. In thisworld, there's no way to send
your pay home. So if you are awoman who's married to a soldier

(18:07):
and you can't travel with theregiment, you're pretty likely
to lose your husband's financialsupport. So there's a lot of
incentive for women to be partof the Army, and the British
army and its officers understoodthat, and so women and children
travel with the army, and theyare part of the financial
responsibility of the army.

Jim Ambuske (18:31):
In June 1765, Jane Chambers, Matthew’s wife, along
with their young child, wereamong the many wives and
children who boarded the HMSThunderer anchored at Cork on
Ireland’s southwest coast. Theship was bound for Halifax, Nova
Scotia. In some ways, the 29thwas unlike other regiments,

(18:52):
given the number of women andchildren that accompanied it.
One of the officers overseeingthe embarkations convinced Irish
officials to permit an evengreater number of family members
than usual to sail with theirhusbands and fathers, fearing
that if they were left behind,they might end up in the
orphanage or the alms house.Sending them to British America

(19:13):
was a way to prevent theirbecoming a burden on the Irish
public.The Thunderer put intoport at Halifax in July 1765,
after a voyage of five weeksacross the Atlantic. The town
was barely fifteen-years-oldwhen the Chambers family
disembarked, along with 500other soldiers and their
families.Like the rest ofBritish Nova Scotia, the town of

(19:37):
Halifax was an experiment fundedby Parliament, an attempt to
directly manage the settlementprocess from afar. Even if the
colonization of Nova Scotiawasn’t going as well as the
British had hoped, Halifax, likeNew York City, had become a
critical node of the Britishmilitary in North America. Like
Ireland, Halifax was a place tohold troops in readiness in case

(20:00):
they were needed elsewhere inthe empire. And while the
soldiers and their families wererelieved they had not been sent
to the West Indies, wheretropical diseases could quickly
decimate troops in closequarters, Halifax was cold. The
barracks were rotting. Most ofits civilian population – about
3,000 people – were single whitemen, though there were a small

(20:24):
number of Black families aswell. ome officers, who had
greater privileges, quicklydecamped to Boston, New York, or
other towns. For the mostlyIrish enlisted men and those
with families, there was littleto do 400 miles north of Boston,
except baptize their children,mourn their passing, welcome new

(20:45):
family members into the world,write home to relatives, partake
in the occasional drunken brawlin local taverns, and wait. By
the summer of 1768, the waitingwas over.

Serena Zabin (21:02):
There were all of these protests and boycotts
after the 1767 passage of theTownsend Acts. Some of those
boycotts are just peoplerefusing to buy stuff. But there
are also dramatic streetprotests that include breaking
people's windows threateningsome of the customs officials

(21:23):
who show up, the customsofficials get pretty anxious,
and they flee to a ship that'sin Boston Harbor, and they start
begging the governor, please, weneed more support.

Jim Ambuske (21:35):
In June 1768, rioting Bostonians forced the
customs commissioners and theirfamilies to flee first to the
HMS Romney and then to CastleWilliam in Boston Harbor. The
officials had seized JohnHancock’s ship the Liberty on
charges of smuggling, triggeringthe revolt. Ann Hulton, the

(21:56):
sister of commissioner HenryHulton, took refuge with her
family in the castle. Althoughthe trappings of polite society
continued in what she calledtheir “exile,” with splendid
dinners with governmentofficials and military officers,
and tea with Governor FrancisBernard, Hulton observed how the
riots impeded the king’sgovernment and the execution of

(22:17):
Parliament’s laws. As she wroteto a friend in London that July:

Unknown (22:21):
“The business of the Commissioners in the mean time
[is] carried on here, my Brotherhas had a vast deal on his hands
ever since he came Out. We foundhim just recovered of a fever
caught by Lodging in an unairedBed in a House he had taken
about 4 Miles from Boston in theCountry…Two of the Commissioners
besides are of our Mess, butdont Lodge here, One of em goes

(22:42):
every Night to the Romney & theother Lodges in the Barracks,
The Clerks all Lodge in theBarracks.”

Jim Ambuske (22:49):
Hulton also took note of a growing Royal Navy
presence in the harbor, andrumors of regiments on their
way.

Unknown (22:56):
“Ships & Sloops of War [have] arrived here from
Jamaica. We have now no lessthan five Stationed round this
Island as our guard. ….. Itsreported that a Regiment of
Soldiers is on the way from NewYork to Boston.”

Jim Ambuske (23:09):
Over tea that afternoon, Governor Bernard may
have confided in Hulton his wishfor a regiment or two to help
keep the peace in Boston.General Thomas Gage, the
commander in chief of Britishforces in North America, had
offered to send soldiers ifBernard requested them, but the
colony’s provincial councilrejected that plan, and the

(23:30):
governor felt he could not turna blind eye to their unanimous
advice. In a postscript, Hultoncaptured the governor in a
reflective moment, as he weighedthe recent past against an
uncertain future.

Unknown (23:43):
“His Excellency says, two more such years as the past
& the British Empire is at anEnd."

Jim Ambuske (23:52):
What neither Hulton or Bernard knew as they drank
tea on that day in mid-July, isthat at that moment, secret
orders were on a ship headingwest from London to New York.
The Earl of Hillsborough, theSecretary of State for the
Colonies, had read with growingalarm Governor Bernard’s recent
letters recounting MassachusettsBay’s resistance to the

(24:13):
Townshend Acts, and itsassembly’s attempt to enlist the
support of the other colonies intheir protests. Hillsborough
directed Gage to send regimentsto Boston to reinforce the
colony’s civil government andensure “due obedience” to the
laws.

Serena Zabin (24:29):
At this moment, there's no police in Britain
during peacetime, magistratesand people who run towns and
cities tended to depend onregiments to help keep order,
and primarily they use regimentsto do two things. One is to cut
down on smuggling, which is abig concern, especially in

(24:50):
England, and the other one is toput down riots. And other
historians have shown that the1760s are kind of a peak decade
for rioting. All around Britain.In London, too, troops are used
for both of those so it'stherefore not at all a stretch
for the governor to say, oh,right, I should ask for some
regiments that will help keeporder in Boston.

Jim Ambuske (25:13):
By the 1760s, Boston had maintained a Night
Watch for over a century. Thewatchmen patrolled the streets
at night, keeping an eye out forfire or threats to property and
the community. While they coulddetain someone suspected of
criminal behavior, they had noformal arrest powers in ways
that we would now recognize. Nordid they have the imposing

(25:34):
presence of regiments to quelllarge riots. It wasn’t
necessarily a surprise, then,that Governor Bernard, Lord
Hillsborough, or General Gagewould consider sending regiments
to Boston.

Serena Zabin (25:46):
So a lot of back and forth about how that's going
to happen. But there are someregiments already in Halifax.
Those are sent to Boston becausethat's the closest set. And then
another regiment will eventuallycome from Ireland. So we end up
with two, and then eventuallyfour and they come to Boston in
the fall of 1768.

Jim Ambuske (26:05):
The men of the 29th and 14th Regiments, together
with a detachment from the 59thRegiment, sailed from Halifax
with their families in lateSeptember 1768. They entered
Boston Harbor a little over aweek later. The 64th Regiment
soon arrived from Ireland,bringing the 65th Regiment with
it.

Serena Zabin (26:24):
and their job is supposed to be to keep order in
Boston, to protect the customsofficials, to sort of tamp down
on all of this rioting and tokeep an eye on the smuggling,
the attempt of many merchants Toevade some of these towns and
acts and taxes, so their jobseems not atypical.

Jim Ambuske (26:46):
But as John McCurdy, Professor of History at
Eastern Michigan University,explains, by 1768 the king's
ministers had begun to imagine ause for the army that was
atypical.

John McCurdy (26:58):
The ministry in England are starting to change
how they think about soldiersand quartering. When soldiers
are in New York or soldiers inAlbany or Charleston
Philadelphia, they're therebecause they just need to have a
place to put them. It's notabout patrolling the people. The
soldiers don't execute any typeof police function. They're not
there to enforce the laws or tokeep the peace. They're just

(27:19):
kind of kept in reserve in casewar were to break out. When it
comes to Boston, they've changedtheir ideas. The ministry in
Britain starts thinking, well,Boston is such a problem.
They're attacking crownofficials, tax collectors.
They're not abiding byparliamentary law. Let's send
soldiers to crack down. Andmaybe they won't crack down
immediately, but their presencewill send the message that they

(27:40):
could crack down. And so it's avery different feeling.

Jim Ambuske (27:46):
Laws in Great Britain and the colonies
governing peacetime armies weremeant to assuage those uneasy
feelings.

Serena Zabin (27:52):
Everybody understands in the British world
that troops have to besubordinate to the civilian
authority. This goes back to as17th century, concern about
whether an army that exists in atime of peace, what purpose it's
going to get put to a peacetimearmy, is it just sitting there

(28:15):
waiting for some king to take itand use against anybody who
disagrees with him, then whatmoment does that just become his
own private set of arms? And theBritish are legitimately
concerned about this, but theyspend a lot of time trying to
think about what kinds ofcontrols can we put on this army

(28:36):
so that the king or hisrepresentatives can't just use
it to get the king's will. Theypass a lot of laws about how
exactly the army can get used.That includes things like the
riot act we use still now, thephrase like to read someone the
riot act. Well, literally, toread the riot act means that a

(28:59):
magistrate, a civilian, notsomebody from the military. A
civilian magistrate has to getin front of a mob and say, if
you don't disperse, the armywill come. And he's supposed to
say that a number of timesbefore the army is allowed to
come. So that is one of the waysin which the army is really
supposed to be subordinate tothe civilian authority if the

(29:24):
army shoots without any civilianhaving read the riot act, then
really the army isn't wrong.They have no right to do that.
But in practical terms, imaginea riot in London or in New York
or any of those places. This isnot that easy to do.

Jim Ambuske (29:41):
And as British officers knew all too well, the
army's very presence in townsand cities like Glasgow, New
York or Boston ran the risk ofviolent delights with violent
ends.

Serena Zabin (29:53):
The army is concerned that it can't control
its own people, and so for themost. Part all of this kind of
urban policing that peace timeregiments are being sent to do
is incredibly unattractive topeople, especially to officers
who are the people who are goingto be responsible if anything
goes wrong. So most of the time,officers whose regiments are

(30:18):
being sent to do urban policingare looking for ways to get out.
They always think this is goingto end my career, and half the
time they're right.

Jim Ambuske (30:28):
From the decks of their ships, the soldiers and
families who sailed into BostonHarbor in the fall of 1768
caught sight of the town that inthe eighteenth-century was
almost an island. Serena Zabinexplains why:

Serena Zabin (30:43):
Boston in the 18th century was only about a square
mile. It was just the peninsula.Think about the Back Bay. There
really was a bay. It's full oflandfill now. So it was a skinny
little peninsula that wasconnected to the mainland by a
place that was just called theneck because that's how skinny
it was, about 16,000 people,which honestly means that the

(31:06):
density of Boston in the 18thcentury is not so different than
its density today. It's actuallya pretty full place. There's a
lot of people there. They'reliving in not very large homes,
pretty crammed together. Thereare pigs and chickens wandering
the streets of Boston, eating upsome of the garbage that's

(31:28):
there, but the part that feelslike you're jostling your
neighbors as you walk by them,pretty much the same.

Jim Ambuske (31:36):
As the new arrivals disembarked on the Long Wharf
and marched into town, they tooknote of their new surroundings,
a geography that signaledBoston's place in the British
Empire.

Serena Zabin (31:47):
Boston is really clearly oriented in all kinds of
ways towards the Atlantic. Theway Boston was set up, it had a
Long Wharf, what is known withgreat originality, as the Long
Wharf that sticks out intoBoston Harbor sticks out farther
than any other Wharf, and itheads straight out to Britain.

(32:10):
And from the Long Wharf, if youturn your back to the ocean and
you look into town, you lookright up the main drag into the
heart of the British authorityin Boston, which is now the Old
State House, what was then knownas the townhouse, so the
governor could stand at hischamber or stand on a little

(32:30):
balcony that stands outside hischamber and look straight down
the main street, out to the LongWharf and out to The Atlantic,
and imagine himself lookingstraight out to London. And that
is the orientation of Boston. Ofcourse, there is that other
side, where people are coming infrom the country where goods

(32:51):
come in from, the country wherelots of people are also
emigrating and moving back andforth. But the town imagines
itself as focused towardsLondon.

Jim Ambuske (33:03):
But where would the soldiers and their families live
in this imperial town? Duringthe Seven Years' War, Boston
didn't build a number ofbarracks, as did Philadelphia,
New York and Charleston. Here'sJohn McCurdy.

John McCurdy (33:17):
Boston considers it. They debate it in the
assembly and decide not to. Ithink in part because not a lot
of soldiers are sent to Boston.They have a fort on an island
with Castle William or CastleIsland, and that seems to be
enough.

Jim Ambuske (33:31):
Within hours of the soldiers and their families
making landfall, the question ofwhere to quarter them touched
off an argument between GovernorBernard the commanding officer,
Lieutenant Colonel WilliamDalrymple, and the Boston
Selectmen.

Serena Zabin (33:44):
There is an argument between the commanding
officers with the support of thegovernor. They're on one side,
and on the other side are thetown Selectmen. And Boston is,
at this moment, a town, not acity. It doesn't have a mayor,
so the guys who are running thetown, the governor wants all of
these troops to be right in thecenter of the city, because what

(34:05):
they're supposed to be doing iscrowd control. He wants them
right where all of the riotingis happening. Maybe he's got
some idea that maybe he's justgonna requisition some space and
just load all of these troops,men, women, children, into the
center of Boston and theSelectmen say, You can't do
that.

Jim Ambuske (34:25):
To protest the Governor’s plans, the Boston
Selectmen invoked the QuarteringAct of 1765. For them, the law
that New Yorkers had resistedwith so much vigor was an asset
in their attempt to keep thesoldiers out of the town.

Serena Zabin (34:40):
They say, look, the Quartering Act says very
clearly that troops, when theyare brought to a new place, have
to be housed first in existingbarracks, then if there's not
any room or enough room in thebarracks, then they're put in
public houses, in pubs, andthere's still not enough room.
Room at that point, one canrequisition private space, and

(35:04):
the Selectmen point out there'sreally quite lovely barracks in
Boston. They are in BostonHarbor. They're on what's now
known as Castle Island. They'djust been refurbished for the
Seven Years' War. The army wasperfectly happy to have them
then, and they said that's wherethe troops should go. They
should be out in the harbor. Ifthey're gonna come here, they

(35:24):
should be in the barracks.

Jim Ambuske (35:25):
For Governor Bernard, who was charged with
keeping the peace in the king’sprovince, the Selectmens’
arguments were a load ofnonsense.

Serena Zabin (35:44):
The governor says, Well, what good are they gonna
do me out there? Castle Islandis seven miles if you walk
around three miles, if you row,and you have to row during high
tide, how can I get troops toput down a riot if they're seven
miles away, Selectmen say, well,that's not really our problem.
We didn't really want themthere, after all.

Jim Ambuske (35:56):
for Lieutenant Colonel Dalrymple, who was
concerned with where his men andtheir families would sleep,
enough was enough.

Serena Zabin (36:04):
The commanding officer says, This is
ridiculous. I'm not putting themin the harbor. So he marches all
of these troops down the LongWharf into the center of Boston.

Jim Ambuske (36:15):
At noon on October 1st, Dalrymple ordered two elite
companies of soldiers to paradedown the Long Wharf and into
town. They stopped in front ofthe Customs House on King
Street, where they were soonjoined by more troops. John
Tudor, a merchant and deacon ofthe Second Church of Boston,
recorded the moment in hisdiary:

Unknown (36:35):
“The Troops drew up in King Street and marched off in a
Short time into the Commons withMuskets charged, Bayonets
fixed…their Colours flying,Drums beating & museck playing,
In short they made a gallantappearance, makeing with the
Train of Artillery about 800men.”

Jim Ambuske (36:52):
The theatricality of the parade carried
unmistakable symbolic power. Assoldiers marched down the Long
Wharf, a wharf that pointed easttoward London, they entered the
town bearing the sovereignty andpower of Parliament and the
Crown.

Serena Zabin (37:09):
He has them start camping in the middle of Boston
on Boston Common and move intoFaneuil Hall and take over some
market space and some otherplaces, and they're there for a
couple of months while peoplekeep bickering about what's

(37:29):
going to happen.

Jim Ambuske (37:30):
As these British officials continued to bicker,
the Twenty-Ninth Regiment set uptents on Boston Common and began
settling in. Jane Chambers soonjoined her husband Matthew in
camp, bringing with her theirchildren, including a baby girl
born in Halifax. They had namedthe little one Jane, after her

(37:51):
mother. Little Jane was a sourceof joy and a well of concern for
her parents. She was ill inthose early days in Boston, so
much so that they convinced alocal Congregational Church to
have her baptised. Happily, thebaby survived. As the Chambers
saw to their daughter’sspiritual and temporal needs,

(38:11):
army and town officials finallyreached a delicate agreement
about quartering the soldiers.

Serena Zabin (38:17):
In the end, the army is forced to compromise
with the Selectmen. TheSelectmen say, if you try to
just requisition private space,we will have you cashiered. This
absolutely won't be the end ofyour career. None of these
officers are that committed thatthey're willing to risk their
career for this. The compromisethey come up with is they say,

(38:37):
Okay, we will lease privatespace from private people to put
troops into Boston. We will payrent. We will rent people's
empty houses. They'll rentwarehouses, which they turn into
barracks. But that's not enoughspace. They also rent people's
extra rooms, their sheds,whatever extra space they have,

(39:00):
the army ends up paying for andas they do that, they end up
moving all of these troops,including all of these families,
into every corner of Boston. Andthey turn hundreds of Bostonians
into landlords and landlady asthey move all of these people
into their private homes, whenthey do that, they've suddenly

(39:21):
trying to integrate now 2000 menand a pretty unknown number of
women and children, but we'regonna assume something like
several 100 into a town of16,000 people that's already
quite dense. They're squeezingfolks in there. It's not always
a smooth process. People don'talways get along super well, but

(39:43):
they do all become neighbors.They all get to know each other
really, very, very well.

Jim Ambuske (39:54):
Over the next seventeen months – from October
1768 to March 1770 – Bostoniansand British soldiers learned to
live together in theirpeninsular town.

Serena Zabin (40:07):
Some of times that goes really well. One of the
things that was remarkable aboutBoston in the 1760s and 1770s is
that actually it was majorityfemale. There are more women
than men. In Boston, that's trueof all colonial cities, partly
because the Seven Years' War, alot of young men actually are

(40:30):
killed, so there's a significantpopulation loss among young men,
but also because cities are theonly places where women can make
wages in any serious way. And soI married women tended to move
to the city if they didn't havea pretty stable family place to
live in. They see all of thesemen and they think, well, that's

(40:55):
a possibility. All of a sudden,here's a marriage possibility
for me,

Jim Ambuske (40:59):
Women like Jane Crothers would find a husband in
soldiers like Private JosephWhitehouse of the 14th Regiment.
Sukey Inman, the niece ofmerchant John Rowe, would soon
find her match in a navalofficer. Not every Boston
family approved of these unions.In June 1769, Joseph Lasenby, a

(41:20):
member of the Sons of Liberty,walked into his daughter’s home
only to find his20-year-granddaughter Mary
Nowell in bed with PrivateWilliam Clark.

Serena Zabin (41:31):
He is horrified. This becomes a story in the
newspapers, unsurprisingly, butthey end up getting married, the
soldier and the granddaughterthe soldier ends up writing this
tell all memoir about it, wherehe's clearly trying to get back
at his in laws. The newspapersread this as a real political

(41:52):
fight. What does it mean tobring the army, literally the
arm of the empire, right intoyour home, right into your bed,
into the bosom of your family,and both the soldier and the
young woman are like, actually,I'm kind of in this to thumb the
nose at my father.

Jim Ambuske (42:12):
For other women, the arrival of the regiments was
also an economic opportunity. Inthe eighteenth century, women
were essential laborers in afunctioning military.

Serena Zabin (42:23):
women, who are being paid by the army, are
overwhelmingly doing laundry.That's the one thing that men
really won't do in the 18thcentury, there are plenty of
male tailors, although there arealso women who will make
uniforms, but what men will notdo is wash clothing, and that is
an enormous hygienic problem forthe army. That is one reason why

(42:47):
it's important for them to havewomen who will do that very hot
and heavy work.

Jim Ambuske (42:54):
Soldiers and their families were also potential
consumers for Boston's femalemerchants and laborers.

Serena Zabin (43:00):
They are doing plenty of laundry. They're doing
plenty of cleaning. They are, ofcourse, also doing wet nursing
when they can. But we seeadvertisements for that, and
then we see lots and lots ofwomen who are engaged in sort of
small scale business ventures.They sell a lot of seeds, for

(43:22):
example, that tends to be a bigthing. Wealthier women run
various kinds of shops forclothes, right? And also for
cloth before it's made intoclothing, then they'll sell
things like gloves and stockingsand shoes and things like that.
So wealthier women are sellingthose fine imported goods, less
wealthy. Women are selling thosesame goods, but in the

(43:44):
secondhand market.

Jim Ambuske (43:46):
Some soldiers forged friendships with Boston
men, and sometimes soldiers wentto work for them.

Serena Zabin (43:52):
Soldiers were absolutely looking for things to
do. They are certainly lookingfor work. Sometimes they are
skilled artisans themselves. Wesometimes see tailors. We
sometimes see wig makers, andthey go and they look for work.
Boston has a depression at thismoment, but it also has a real
labor shortage, and so for themost part, people are happy to

(44:13):
hire soldiers.

Jim Ambuske (44:15):
Even if they weren't exactly thrilled with
the soldiers being in Boston orin their granddaughters' beds.
The Sons of Liberty also enjoyedsome economic and social
benefits from the British Army.

Serena Zabin (44:27):
The Sons of Liberty think that they won this
argument. They are prettypleased. They made the army pay
like hard cash to rent thesespaces in Boston. They won the
legal argument, and theyactually are winning the fiscal
argument. They are perfectlywilling to rent whatever spaces
they have. That's actually asuccess for the Sons of Liberty.

(44:49):
Renting isn't a sign of one'spolitical affiliation. We know
some of the officers joinfraternal organizations. Friends
that have John Hancock and PaulRevere and some of our most
famous Sons of Liberty, they areall in it together, marching
around in their regalia, andthey see each other, they have a

(45:11):
pretty good time, apparently,socializing together. That
doesn't seem to be a problem.

Jim Ambuske (45:19):
While the Sons of Liberty and officers like
Dalrymple enjoyed cordialrelations, Boston women and
enlisted men celebrated welcomeand unwelcome marriages, and
Boston landlords collected rentfrom military tenants, Black
British soldiers serving in theregiments forged relationships
of their own with enslaved andfree people of color in Boston.

Serena Zabin (45:41):
We know that the army brings with them a number
of African descended people,largely Jamaican, who are free
both men and women as part ofthe Army, and who find a black
community to some degree inBoston.

Jim Ambuske (45:59):
John Bacchus was one of at least 10 Black men
serving as drummers in the 29thRegiment. Bacchus was born in
Jamaica in 1726. From thesurviving evidence, we can’t be
sure if he was born in slaveryor freedom, but we do know that
he joined the army in 1752. Helisted his occupation as a

(46:19):
“laborer.” By 1768, Bacchus wasforty-three-years-old and had
served in the military forsixteen years. Like many of the
soldiers deployed to Boston, hewas also the subject of a noise
complaint from local residentswho accused him and a white
private of drinking andentertaining far too long into

(46:39):
the night. What did army servicemean to Bacchus, as well as the
other drummers, some of whom mayhave been forced into the
regiment as enslaved people? Inthe absence of Bacchus’s own
words, we can look to theexperiences of a fellow soldier
in the 28th Regiment, who leftthe army just 4 years earlier.

(47:00):
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was born inBornu, in what is now Nigeria in
the early eighteenth century. Hewas taken captive at age 15 and
sold into slavery, transportedfirst to Barbados and then New
York. In New York, a Protestantminister purchased Gronniosaw
for £50, taught him to read andwrite, and when he died, freed

(47:23):
Gronniosaw in his will. In aworld in which a legally free
Black man might be stolen backinto slavery, for Gronniosaw the
army was a means of protectinghis freedom. In the final years
of the Seven Years’ War, heenlisted in the 28th Regiment,
and served in the Caribbeancampaigns against the Spanish.

(47:44):
Gronniosaw managed to purchasehis own discharge in 1762, and
later settled in England. In1770, the same year as the
shooting on King Street inBoston, he wrote and published
his autobiography. John Bacchusmay have viewed his service in
the British Army in the samelight. When he arrived in Boston

(48:06):
in 1768, Bacchus deployed to atown that was no stranger to
slavery nor the precarity offreedom. Boston merchants were
deeply involved in atransatlantic trade that
transformed sugar, intomolasses, into rum, into more
enslaved field hands. And:

Serena Zabin (48:25):
There are enslaved people in Boston. They are part
of every segment of the economy.They live in every kind of home.

Jim Ambuske (48:37):
By the late 1760s, Boston had a small population of
free and enslaved people.Enslaved Bostonians labored for
white residents everywhere, fromthe governor’s home on down to
the docks. Cato, GovernorBernard’s manservant, ferried
the governor around town as hiscoachman. We find glimpses of

(48:58):
another enslaved man, also namedCato, in the diaries of merchant
John Rowe. In November 1766,Rowe sent Cato to the workhouse
for what he deemed “a very badfault.” Rowe doesn’t tell us
what Cato did to draw hisowner’s ire, but another diary
entry, just over a year latersuggests that Cato may have

(49:21):
resisted his enslavement. InJanuary 1768, Rowe put Cato
aboard a ship bound for Jamaica.Enslavers sometimes sold
enslaved people they deemedtroublesome to the West Indies,
to the sugar fields and theprospect of an early death. It
is also possible that Rowerented out Cato to the ship’s

(49:43):
captain for a time to serve aspart of the crew. On January 4,
1769, Rowe recorded anotherincident involving a Cato,
possibly the same enslaved man.Rowe returned home from dinner
that evening to find this Catoin possession of a sword
belonging to a soldier in the14th Regiment. Rowe doesn’t tell

(50:06):
us how Cato got hold of thesword nor any consequences.
Nevertheless, for whiteBostonians like Rowe, Cato’s
possible acts of resistance tohis authority were unsettling in
their own right, and in theabsence of constant vigilance,
they raised the prospect thatthe acts of one could become a

(50:26):
conspiracy of the many.

Serena Zabin (50:29):
Boston officials are terrified and sometimes do
call those bBack soldiers up infront of the court for hosting
parties, for having what theycall disorderly houses, largely
because they feared what kindsof conversations were happening
there. We also know that theBritish Army, or at least some
members of it, were willing toweaponize the fear of slave

(50:53):
revolts.

Jim Ambuske (50:54):
A few months after Cato’s forced journey to Jamaica
in 1768, army Captain JohnWilson staggered down Boston’s
streets, deep in his cups, witha bravado fortified by liquor.
Days earlier he had insulted twoBoston residents, calling them
“liberty boys” and “rebels.”Now, with a renewed sense of

(51:16):
courage, he approached threeenslaved men, asked them if
their masters were Liberty Boys,and then said:

Serena Zabin (51:24):
if you're willing to start an uprising in Boston,
kill your masters, come to me,I'll protect you. The Army's got
your back.

Jim Ambuske (51:32):
Wilsons's inebriated offer did not go
unnoticed by white Bostonians.Three slave owners overheard
him, and reported his words toBoston’s Selectmen. Wilson
eventually surrendered tocivilian authorities, but only
after hiding out in his barracksfor the better part of a day.
The captain managed to avoidformal charges of inciting a

(51:54):
slave revolt, pleadingdrunkeness as an excuse for his
unseemly behaviour. DespiteBostonians’ general resentment
of the soldiers’ presence,Captain Wilson’s drunken plan to
provoke a slave insurrection,and one Scottish officer’s
rather colorful threat to “setyou all in fires in a menent and

(52:16):
drive you all to hell anddamnation,” by the summer of
1769 some semblance of order andcalm had returned to Boston.

Serena Zabin (52:25):
The protests in Boston have really calmed down
after 1768 the officers argue toremove the soldiers in the
summer of 1769 so there almostwasn't a Boston Massacre, if we
think Boston Massacre was inMarch of 1770, in August of
1769, troops are embarking onships and leaving to go to

(52:48):
Halifax.

Jim Ambuske (52:49):
The 64th and 65th Regiments left for Nova Scotia.
The British needed four shipsalone to take the regiment’s
women and children north.Governor Bernard left as well.
In the spring of 1769, a Memberof Parliament friendly to
Boston’s Sons of Liberty leakedreports that the governor had

(53:09):
sent to the king’s ministers,reports that in Bostonians’ view
had portrayed them as lawlessradicals. Those radicals
promptly published Bernard’sreports in local papers. The
British government recalled anangry and embarrassed Bernard to
England, leaving ThomasHutchinson to govern in his
stead. When Bernard left inAugust, Bostonians celebrated

(53:33):
his departure with a bonfire solarge that the former governor
could see it from hisship.Before leaving British
America for the last time,Bernard privately entreated
General Gage to leave sometroops in Boston. In his mind,
they remained essential to thesupport of His Majesty’s
government in the colony.

Serena Zabin (53:54):
They get two regiments of the four sent off,
and then the governor's like,yeah, I don't feel so good about
not having any troops. And theofficers are pleading with a
please, could we get out of herebefore there's a disaster? The
governor says, No, I really wantto keep a few. The general says,
Okay, fine. They've reduced thechances of something happening,

(54:15):
but they do leave these tworegiments in Boston. So in the
summer of 69 it looks likeeverything is going to be fine,
like things will calm down, andfor the most part, Boston
continues to roll on the way ithad been.

Jim Ambuske (54:30):
But that renewed sense of stability only masked a
persistent unease that lingeredjust beneath the surface. The
haughty words of a soldier or asnide remark from a Bostonian,
slights often lubricated by wineor rum punch, sometimes brought
soldiers and civilians to blows.And even when incidents of

(54:50):
violence didn’t involvecivilians against soldiers, some
Bostonians imagined them as partof a larger pattern of imperial
oppression anyway.

Serena Zabin (55:01):
In the winter of 1770 there are a number of very
small conflicts with customsofficials, and at one point, a
customs official, who isfrustrated by the street protest
that's happening in front of hishouse, shoots out the window and
ends up killing a teenager.

Jim Ambuske (55:22):
In late February, street protests broke out in
Boston’s North End againstmerchants who they accused of
violating the town’snon-importation movement. For
days, the Sons of Liberty andtheir supporters harassed
merchants like TheophilusLillie, who had never signed the
agreement. The protesters tarredand feathered windows, threw

(55:42):
eggs at merchants’ homes, andthreatened them. In the pages of
the Boston Chronicle, anewspaper sympathetic to the
Crown, Lillie minced no wordsabout these sons and daughters
of liberty:

Speaker 1 (55:55):
“it always seemed strange to me that people who
contend so much for civil andreligious liberty should be so
ready to deprive others of theirnatural liberty; that men who
are guarding against beingsubject to laws which they never
gave their consent in person orby their representative should

(56:15):
at the same time make laws, andin the most effectual manner
execute them upon me and others,to which Laws I am sure I never
gave my consent either in personor by my representative.”

Jim Ambuske (56:29):
On the morning February 22nd, a customs
official named EbeneazerRichardson came to Lillie’s aid.
Richardson was no admirer of theSons of Liberty, nor did they
think much of him, a man theydeemed “the most abandoned
wretch in America.” Throughoutthe day Richardson and the

(56:50):
protesters traded insults beforethe customs officer took refuge
in his home. As the protestorslobbed stones, fruit peels, and
wood at his door and through hiswindows, Richardson grabbed his
gun and stuck it through thewindow frame. He fired, just as
Christoper Seider bent down topick up a stone. Eleven swanshot

(57:12):
pellets lodged in his chest andabdomen. Two other men were
wounded.

Serena Zabin (57:17):
At that moment, the commanding officer says,
Well, should I go out there? Andthen it's like, well, I can't go
and do anything about this untilthe civilian authority asks for
my help, and the civilianauthority never does.

Jim Ambuske (57:32):
With no civilian official reading the riot act
before the crowd, the army hadno legal authority to intervene.
Seider was carried to a housewhere he died at nine o'clock
that night. He was 11 years old.

Serena Zabin (57:48):
When Christopher Seider is killed, it actually
has nothing to do with the army.They are sitting there in their
barracks, but the Sons ofLiberty see this death and these
protests against the customsofficials as part of a larger
political story, they organizedan immense funeral for
Christopher Seider. John Adamssays he's never seen anything

(58:11):
like it in all his days.Emerson's grandfather's in town,
and he's just stunned by howmany people are thronging the
street. So there's an immensefuneral that the Sons of Liberty
see as one of the pieces of PRthat they are doing to explain
that really these customsofficials are overstepping, that

(58:35):
customs officials, like thearmy, are part of the British
government, and they reallyshouldn't be in Boston. So
already in February of 1770 youhave people talking in political
terms. Not everybody, but a lotof people are on the street for
that funeral. But nonetheless,the troops are not a part of it.
They don't necessarily seethemselves as part of that

(58:56):
story. Officers are saying, Idon't love how these politics
are rolling, but privatescontinue to be hanging out with
their neighbors, getting drunk,getting married, having kids,
baptizing them in the localchurches. Those things are all
happening.

Jim Ambuske (59:12):
As Ebeneazer Ricardson awaited trial for
murder, and the Sons of Libertytransformed Christopher Seider’s
funeral into a public protestagainst imperial overreach,
soldiers and civilians continuedto fraternize with and insult
each other. On March 2nd,ropemaker William Green called
out to Private Patrick Walker ofthe 29th Regiment, who was just

(59:34):
then passing by. Green askedWalker if he wanted some work.
According to one account, whenWalker signaled his interest,
Green then told the soldier to“go and clean my shit house.”The
surviving sources don’t agree onwho threw the first punch, but
the ensuing brawl that eruptedlasted two days before civilian

(59:55):
officials and regimentalcommanders managed to get both
sides under control.

Serena Zabin (59:59):
So both the military and civilians tend to
tell the story of what happensnext from the perspective of
what gets known as the Rope WalkBrawl. I'm not convinced that
that's any more related to whathappens in the night of March 5,
which is the shooting, than anyof the other random incidents

(01:00:22):
and conflicts that have beenhappening in Boston since the
troops show up. But the storygets put together that way.

Jim Ambuske (01:00:31):
Three days after William Green lobbed verbal scat
at Private Walker, Jane Crotherswas inside her lodgings at the
Royal Exchange Tavern, when sheheard a commotion outside. It
was the night of March 5, 1770.

Serena Zabin (01:00:47):
There's a snowfall, and it's worth
remembering that Boston, at thismoment doesn't have any street
lights, so it's it's dark. Nineo'clock at night in March is
dark.

Jim Ambuske (01:00:58):
Crothers headed outside and crossed the lane to
find Private Hugh White of the29th Regiment standing guard in
front of the Customs House. Onlyhours earlier, White had clubbed
a wigmaker’s apprentice with thebutt of his gun for insulting an
officer. As Crothers and Whitetalked, they both heard:

Serena Zabin (01:01:18):
Various kinds of things from the center of
Boston, people talking, peoplebickering, maybe people
fighting, right, which happensin front of various bars.

Jim Ambuske (01:01:27):
Crothers and White soon saw an angry crowd
approaching them.

Serena Zabin (01:01:32):
There are people on the street, including a
number of young people, some ofthem apprentices, teenagers who
come up to this private who'sstanding guard in front of the
Customs House, which is right inthe center of Boston, kitty
corner from the townhouse, andthey start hassling him.

Jim Ambuske (01:01:50):
They hurled ice, oyster shells and insults at
White who began to fear for hisand Crothers' safety.

Serena Zabin (01:01:56):
And he gets anxious. He calls for backup,
handful of soldiers come, led bythe officer of the day, other
civilians come out to find outwhat's going on.

Jim Ambuske (01:02:07):
Captain Thomas Preston arrived with seven men
to reinforce white at the cornerof the customs house. In the
face of a growing crowd. Whiteturned to push Crothers out of
the way.

Serena Zabin (01:02:18):
The number of people in the street ranges in
people's estimates anywhere from50 to 250 which is a big range.
It's hard to know how manypeople are actually there trying
to figure out what's going on.The officer of the day tells a
civilian whom he knows on thestreet that this is all gonna be
fine. He's just sort of there totry to calm things down, but

(01:02:42):
things continue to get wild, andit's not clear what happens,
because nobody can see anything.

Jim Ambuske (01:02:47):
In those chaotic few moments, as civilians and
soldiers alike watched from manydifferent points on King Street,
as they threw ice, shoutedinsults, strained to hear, felt
rage, fixed bayonets, andbattled fear, no one person
could see or hear everything.The first shot rang out from

(01:03:08):
Private Montgomery’s gun. Andthen:

Serena Zabin (01:03:11):
All we know that all the witnesses agree to, is
that somebody yells "fire," andit's very unclear whether what
we have are civilians who areyelling at the soldiers. You
don't dare fire because, ofcourse, nobody read the riot
act. We don't know if somebodyis yelling fire. There's a fire

(01:03:32):
which is not uncommon in Boston,which is a wooden city, and much
of the center of Boston burneddown pretty spectacularly in
1760 so fire is not unusualthing to be afraid of, or
whether actually somebody yelledfire as a command. So we don't
know all of those are possible.All we know is that guns fire,

(01:03:54):
and when the smoke clears, thereare three people dead, two more
dying on the street and anothersix who are injured.

Jim Ambuske (01:04:05):
Crispus Attucks was killed immediately. Two musket
balls tore through his chest.Attucks was a mixed race man, a
descendent of both West Africanand Indigenous Natick peoples.
He had been born to the west ofBoston in the town of Framingham
nearly fifty years earlier. Hehad once been enslaved, although
historians are not sure if hewas legally free at the time of

(01:04:28):
his death. Some Bostonians knewhim as “Michael Johnson,” a name
he used to conceal his identityand protect against possible
re-enslavement. That Attucks waseven there that night was a
matter of chance. In 1770, hewas a sailor by trade and called
the Bahamas home. He was headedto North Carolina by way of

(01:04:50):
Boston when on the night ofMarch 5th, he was seen leading a
group of sailors, who werebrandishing clubs and
threatening Captain Preston andhis men. Ropemaker Samuel Gray
was shot in the head. He wasdead before he hit the ground.
He has been standing in thecrowd with his hands in his
pockets. James Caldwell, anothersailor, was in the middle of

(01:05:14):
King Street when two musketballs ended his
life.Seventeen-year-old SamuelMaverick, was running away from
the crowd when somethingredirected the flight of a ball,
sending it into Maverick’schest. He died the next day.
Irish immigrant Patrick Carr wascrossing King Street and heading
for the corner of Quaker Lanewhen a musket ball ripped

(01:05:36):
through his right hip and intohis spine. Carr was no stranger
to a fight. Only moments beforehe was shot, another man had
persuaded Carr to leave acutlass behind before joining
the crowd. Doctors couldn’t savehim. He died two weeks later.

Serena Zabin (01:05:55):
Two are dying and those who are dead, I mean, they
are bleeding out in the snow infront of the central seat of
British power. Seeing that kindof violence, whether deliberate
or not, and that's what's sounclear, but seeing it happen,
seeing civilians die in front ofthe central site of British

(01:06:20):
authority was really terrifyingand really moving to everybody,
including the governor,including the officers and, of
course, including all of theBostonians. It's a horrifying
sight.

Jim Ambuske (01:06:34):
Within minutes of the shooting, Captain Preston
called for the rest of the 29thRegiment to reinforce his men as
the crowd began to back away,tend to the wounded, and reform
for another fight. GovernorThomas Hutchinson raced to the
scene, working his way throughthe crowd into the Town House,
and from the balcony managed tosomewhat calm the crowd with the

(01:06:57):
promise of an immediateinvestigation.

Serena Zabin (01:07:00):
Everybody at the time says, we have to do
something about this. Nobodythinks that it was acceptable.
The soldiers are not doublingdown on what they did. The
officers not saying this isjustified. Everybody says, Wow,
that was awful. And the questionis, what happens after that?

Jim Ambuske (01:07:22):
Soldiers and civilians retreated. Preston
turned himself in to civilauthorities the next morning. He
and the soldiers involved withthe shooting were confined to
the town jail. And as civilianofficials began taking
depositions, political factionsbegan maneuvering to control the
narrative.

Serena Zabin (01:07:40):
The Sons of Liberty understand it as full of
potential for the story thatthey are trying to tell about
the overreach of the Britishempire into the ways in which
they think the colony shouldlive. They understand that there
is a propaganda potential here.Likewise, Army officers

(01:08:01):
understand immediately thatthere's a story here, and they
need some PR help.

Jim Ambuske (01:08:08):
The Sons of Liberty orchestrated funerals for the
dead men, arranging publicspectacles that exceeded
Christopher Sieder’s funeralonly weeks earlier. They also
turned to print, to champion anarrative that turned the
shooting into “massacre.”

Serena Zabin (01:08:23):
The Sons of Liberty, which includes Paul
Revere, tell a very clear storythat we continue to live with,
because it's one of the very fewimages that we have from
revolutionary America, which isthe engraving of the Boston
Massacre.

Jim Ambuske (01:08:42):
The artist Henry Pelham began working on a
drawing of the shooting withindays of the killings. He called
his work The Fruits of ArbitraryPower, or The Bloody Massacre.
Paul Revere managed to get acopy of it. Revere was a
silversmith and a veteran of theSeven Years’ War. As he engraved
a copy of Pelham’s sketch, hemade his own improvements,

(01:09:05):
tightening the focus here andthere, and gave it a simpler,

and more effective title (01:09:08):
The Bloody Massacre.

Serena Zabin (01:09:12):
We see soldiers all lined up, leaning forward
with the officer safely standingbehind them, urging them on to
shoot this set of unarmed,innocent looking civilians, with
a woman right in the middle,showing that these are not
hooligans. These are all kind ofmiddle class guys, that a single
woman can be saved in the middleof them, that they are not at

(01:09:35):
fault. The story that the Sonsof Liberty are trying to tell
here is that this is a massacrethat was perpetrated sort of by
the army, but mostly by theministry who sent the army. The
army is really just theirengine, and it is absolutely
what happens when a standingarmy in peacetime is sent to

(01:09:58):
police an innocent. Set ofpeople who did nothing wrong. Of
course, they're going to mowthem down in cold blood, and the
British Ministry should haveseen it coming. And that's the
argument that the engravingtells and that is the argument
that they're working really hardto get out.

Jim Ambuske (01:10:18):
The army had a different view of the shooting.

Serena Zabin (01:10:21):
The argument, of course, that the army wants to
tell is that this was selfdefense, that all along
Bostonians have been out ofhand. They needed to have an
army to help control them, thatthere's been a lot of hostility,
and only thanks to the army didthe whole place not go up in
flames anyway. And so thereforethey were just doing their job.

(01:10:43):
Those are the two parts of theargument that they're trying to
put out before the trial.

Jim Ambuske (01:10:50):
Within two weeks of the shooting, and only after
delicate negotiations betweenthe Governor, army officers, and
town representatives, most ofthe soldiers in the 29th and
14th Regiments were removed fromthe town to Castle William in
the harbor. The barracks couldnot hold everyone, meaning that
some soldiers had to leave theirwives and children on the

(01:11:10):
mainland. With the soldiersgone, the army no longer paid
rent for private homes andwarehouses, leaving some army
families in the lurch. Sincethey had always been considered
temporary, and not permanentresidents, town officials warned
them that if they becamedestitute, Boston was under no
obligation to provide them withpublic support. Even as some

(01:11:33):
women and children confronted astark new reality, others still
found happiness. Boston womencontinued to marry British
soldiers. Jane Crothers becameJane Whitehouse when she married
Private Joseph Whitehouse, threeweeks after her ordeal on King
Street. Meanwhile, merchantslike John Rowe continued to dine
with British officers. Theshooting may have shocked

(01:11:56):
soldiers and civilians alike,deepening the mistrust between
them, yet it didn’t completelysever the relationships they had
forged, nor the ones theycontinued to build. But in June,
the 29th Regiment left for NewJersey, taking the soldiers and
their families with it. Only the14th Regiment remained, as did

(01:12:16):
Captain Preston and his men, whowere awaiting trial for murder.
They sat in jail as Bostoniansand the British army continued
vying for control of the storyof just what happened on that
March night.

Serena Zabin (01:12:31):
Both sides are trying to tell their story, to
put out this narrative in thecourt of public opinion, but
meanwhile, there's an actualcourt that will have to figure
out blame. Whose fault was it?How did these five people die?
Who's responsible for theirdeath from the very first night

(01:12:51):
people were so horrified, thegovernor promises that there
will be an investigation andthat this will happen in a
civilian court, not a courtmartial. The officer in charge
turns himself in, as do theother soldiers. They go to jail.
And then there's a questionabout what kind of defense the
soldiers and the officer aregoing to get.

Jim Ambuske (01:13:14):
For Boston’s town government, and for the Sons of
Liberty, the impending trials ofPreston and his men raised a
number of concerning questions.Would Samuel Quincy, the
colony’s solicitor general, andthe crown’s prosecutor of this
case, fight hard to convict theking’s soldiers in the king’s
name? Or would he make a poorshowing that led to their

(01:13:34):
acquittal? Would the accusedreceive proper legal counsel
from some of Boston’s mostcompetent lawyers? Or would
Boston’s attorneys beg off theassignment, as many already had,
leaving the impression thatBoston cared nothing for the
rule of law? For Preston andhis men, the questions were more
troubling. Would any Bostonlawyer bother to represent them?

(01:13:57):
And if they were convicted oncharges of murder, would they
face execution?Boston lawyersJohn Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr.
agreed to defend them. Adams wasthe cousin of Samuel Adams, one
of the leading Sons of Liberty.He was a frequent critic of

(01:14:17):
Governor Hutchinson, and anopponent of Parliament’s
attempts to centralize theempire. Quincy was the brother
of Samuel Quincy, the man whowas prosecuting their clients.
Why they took the case hassometimes puzzled historians. In
later years, Adams claimed hedid so only with great
reluctance.

Serena Zabin (01:14:38):
He sort of heightens the sense that he did
this against lots of opposition.

Jim Ambuske (01:14:42):
Quincy’s “anxious and distressed” father was
shocked to learn that his sonhad agreed to defend “those
criminals.” Quincy nobly repliedthat at first he had refused,
but believed it was his duty asan attorney to provide good
counsel to the accused. At theend of his letter, though, he
let slip why he had reallychanged his mind. He had

(01:15:05):
received a visit from “an Adams,a Hancock, a Molineux, a
Cushing, a Henshaw, a Pemberton,a Warren, a Cooper, and a
Phillips." In other words:

Serena Zabin (01:15:17):
The Sons of Liberty begged John Adams and
Quincy to take the defense ofthe soldiers, because they're
looking to take a high ground.Their story really was that
Bostonians were actually superlaw abiding people. They never
needed an army there to keepcontrol. And one of the ways

(01:15:37):
that they want to make theargument that they are law
abiding is to say we are goingto take our best legal minds and
offer them to these soldiersthat we believe in the process,
we believe in a court of law, webelieve in the rule of law.
We're going to lean right intoit.

Jim Ambuske (01:15:53):
At the same time:

Serena Zabin (01:15:54):
It's true that Sam Adams and some of the other Sons
of Liberty are not convincedthat this is the best strategy,
and they're worried that John'sgonna do too good a job. Yes, of
course they should have defense,but the defense shouldn't be too
awesome. And they're, of course,especially worried that the
people who are supposed to beprosecuting the soldiers are, of

(01:16:18):
course, the king's attorney. Sothey're really worried that the
prosecution is not going to bevery vibrant.

Jim Ambuske (01:16:24):
To ensure a more robust prosecution, the Sons of
Liberty maneuvered to have thetown appoint Robert Treat Paine,
a lawyer practicing in southernMassachusetts Bay, to assist the
solicitor general on behalf ofthe victims’ families. But they
could influence only so much.Much would depend on the
arguments that the prosecutionand the defense presented in

(01:16:46):
court. Captain Preston’s trialbegan in October 1770.

Serena Zabin (01:16:54):
John Adams decides on a set of practices that are
perhaps not legit today, butwere perfectly fine in the 18th
century, which is that he isgoing to defend both the officer
and the soldiers, but in twodifferent trials. So he
separates the trial from theofficer Preston from that of the

(01:17:16):
soldiers.

Jim Ambuske (01:17:17):
Trying Preston and his men separately would allow
the court to focus on theactions of each on the fatal
night. Both would turn on acentral question: Did Preston
give an order to fire, and didthe soldiers obey that order?
Much was at stake. The outcomeof one trial could have a
profound impact on the other.

Serena Zabin (01:17:37):
The privates are really anxious about this, and
we in fact, have a letter thatthey wrote to Adams or to the
court, saying, This is aterrible idea. You are about to
make an argument that theofficer did not give the command
to fire, but if you do that,then all you're doing is hanging
us out to dry, because, ofcourse, we had to follow the

(01:17:59):
order of our captain. What areyou doing to us? But Adams
actually manages to thread areally tiny needle that is both
impressive and sort ofhorrifying. He makes the
argument for the defense ofCaptain Preston, that Preston
was in a situation that nobodycould hear what he actually

(01:18:23):
said. What he's really trying todo in that case is just show how
much confusion there was, sothat the jury couldn't
legitimately say yes without abeyond a shadow of a doubt, we
know that he gave a command tofire.

Jim Ambuske (01:18:37):
To win the day, Adams asked the jury to imagine
a Boston that didn't exist.

Serena Zabin (01:18:44):
He somewhat carefully picks a jury that is
likely to be sympathetic toPreston. Indeed, he gets Preston
off. He does that also by justpretending that this whole world
of connections between civiliansand soldiers just didn't even
exist. He just says nobodyreally could hear what was going

(01:19:06):
on. How could you possiblybelieve that? How could you put
your hand on your heart andswear that somebody gave that
order? And he does that despitelots of other evidence that
people did hear Preston saythings. People knew who he was.
But he gets Preston off.

Jim Ambuske (01:19:21):
The jury found Preston not guilty on October
30th. Friends of Preston weremembers of that jury, a fact
both the defense and theprosecution conveniently
ignored. Jane Crothers, now JaneWhitehouse, the wife of a
private of the 14th Regiment,gave testimony in Preston’s
defense, but no one mentionedthat she knew many soldiers, and

(01:19:44):
that she had married one. WithPreston’s acquitted, attention
turned to the trial of the eightindicted soldiers, which began
in late November. If Preston hadnot ordered them to fire, it
meant they had done so on theirown, making them murders. So,
Adams:

Serena Zabin (01:20:01):
Follows this defense of self defense, where
he says yes, they shot. He can'tsay that they didn't people are
dead. So he says yes, there wereshots, but they had to defend
themselves. But what he doesn'twant to do is say that Boston is
a scary place that soldiers haveto defend themselves against. So
he needs to say, yes, Bostoniansreal. Bostonians are legitimate,

(01:20:24):
law abiding, calm people, thepeople that actually these
soldiers were defendingthemselves against, were not
real. Bostonians. They wereIrish, they were sailors, they
were apprentices, they werepeople of color.

Jim Ambuske (01:20:41):
As Adams told the jury in his closing argument:

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
“We have been entertained with a great variety
of phrases, to avoid callingthis sort of people a mob.—Some
call them shavers, some callthem genius’s.—The plain English
is gentlemen, most probably amotley rabble of saucy boys,
negroes and molattoes, Irishteagues and out landish jack

(01:21:06):
tarrs"

Serena Zabin (01:21:07):
And this is the moment the Crispus Attucks comes
in.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
“It is plain the soldiers did not leave their
station, but cried to thepeople, stand off: now to have
this reinforcement coming downunder the command of a stout
Molatto fellow, whose verylooks, was enough to terrify any
person, what had not thesoldiers then to fear? He had
hardiness enough to fall in uponthem, and with one hand took

(01:21:30):
hold of a bayonet, and with theother knocked the man down: This
was the behaviour of Attucks;—to whose mad behaviour, in all
probability, the dreadfulcarnage of that night, is
chiefly to be ascribed.”

Serena Zabin (01:21:44):
Crispus Attucks is one of the people who dies
immediately he's shot in thatcrowd, and nobody really remarks
on his color when he's killed,his color becomes important to
Adams, who uses it by saying,actually, the guys who were
killed, they weren't reallylegit. They're not really

(01:22:05):
Bostonians. Yeah, there was ariot, and, of course, soldiers
had to defend themselves. ButBostonians don't riot, just
people who come here who aren'tpart of us. Because we, when we
say we are Bostonians, what wereally are are white, middle
class, bourgeois people, andthat's his argument, and it
mostly works.

Jim Ambuske (01:22:26):
In December 1770, the jury found six soldiers,
including Private Hugh White,not guilty. Two more, Privates
Montgomery and Kilroy wereconvicted of manslaughter, based
on clear evidence that both menhad fired into the crowd. With
the trials over Bostonians andBritish soldiers could begin

(01:22:48):
moving on, but the shooting onKing Street did more than just
lead to the deaths of five men.The massacre wounded a family.

Serena Zabin (01:22:58):
Bostonians and soldiers have lived together for
17 months. When the shootinghappens, they continue to live
together for months. After that,they continue to marry each
other, to have childrentogether. They don't see the
shooting as the beginning of therevolution. We've come to name

(01:23:19):
it as that, but that's not whatit felt like. But nonetheless,
the shooting does make a change,because what it does is it ends
up driving soldiers, of course,out of Boston, tearing apart the
relationships that civilians andsoldiers have made together, and
it also really brings home toBostonians what it means to live

(01:23:43):
in the empire, what it means toreally have the empire in your
bed, in your home. Some of themlook at that. They think, oh, I
don't want this. But even more,they look at what it feels like
to break down, and they think, Inever liked this, even if
perhaps they had, in fact, theyreally did. But just like any

(01:24:04):
bad divorce, you look through itand all you see is the dark
piece, and that's the story thatthe Boston Massacre comes to be
at the time, nobody knew what itwas, but the emotional ties that
people made in those months thatthe soldiers and civilians are
living together becomesignificant for the emotional

(01:24:27):
reasons that people decide thatthey're going to join a revolt.

Jim Ambuske (01:24:40):
Seven months after the trials over the “Bloody
Massacre” had come to an end,Bostonians opened their
newspapers only to finddisturbing accounts of recent
events in North Carolina. Foryears, some white settlers in
the North Carolina backcountryhad complained about unjust
provincial taxes, corruptcolonial officials, and lavish

(01:25:04):
provincial spending. They calledthemselves “Regulators,” and
they intended to root outcorruption in North Carolina’s
government, politely throughpetitioning if they could,
regulation through rioting ifthey must. In May 1771, the
provincial government respondedto the Regulators’ demands at a

(01:25:26):
place called Alamance. Weekslater, Bostonians, and other
British Americans read withdismay of “an astonishing
Account of a CIVIL WAR in NorthCarolina.“
Thanks for listening to WorldsTurned Upside Down. Worlds is a

(01:25:48):
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University.I'm your host.
Jim Ambuske,.This episode ofWorlds is supported by Richard
H. Brown and Mary Jo Otsea. Ifyou’d like to make a gift to
support the series, head tor2studios.org to learn how.

(01:26:09):
You’ll also find there acomplete transcript of today’s
episode and suggestions forfurther reading. Worlds is
researched and written by mewith additional research,
writing, and script editing byJeanette Patrick. Jeanette
Patrick and I are the ExecutiveProducers. Grace Mallon is our
British Correspondent. Ourlead audio editor for this

(01:26:29):
episode is Patrick Long ofPrimary Source Media. Annabelle
Spencer is our graduateassistant. Our thanks to Serena
Zabin and John McCurdy forsharing their expertise with us
in this episode. Thanks also toour voice actors, Anne Fertig,
Grace Mall,on Evan McCormick,Adam McNeil, and Nate Sleeter.
Subscribe to Worlds on yourfavorite podcast app. Thanks,

(01:26:53):
and we'll see you next time you.