This week in history features an unfortunate event blown out of proportions.
March 5, 1770
It would have been more appropriate to call it a “Protest Gone Awry” or maybe an instance of “British Troops Heavy-Handed.” Certainly, it wasn’t a “Massacre.” But then again, no one said the media had to be fair or balanced, least of all those in colonial America (actually, the media hadn’t changed all that much a century later).
A name, introduced in a newspaper headline, popularized by political rhetoric of the day and canonized by two centuries of student textbooks – that is the “Bloody [later Boston] Massacre.
But what’s in a name? Well, as with all things relating to such an important historical event, quite a bit. Very few things in the world of history are ever easily explained (I consider that job security for us historians).
The origins of colonial-English tension can arguably be traced back decades before the first shots of the American Revolution echoed over Massachusetts fields.
In the thriving port city of Boston, anger over British overreaching ramped up following the passage of a series of laws collectively known as the Townsend Acts in June of 1767. The acts consisted of increased taxes on goods like glass, paints, and tea. A year later, British troops were sent to Boston to enforce the new laws.
After two years of enduring occupation by an invading army – as the colonists saw the British garrison – frustrated Bostonians began chaffing at the indignity.
This frustration frequently manifested in hurled taunts and insults as well as the occasional mud pie or clod of horse manure.
On the cold night of March 5, 1770, icicles and rocks were included in the barrage as a group of angry colonists harassed a detachment of British regulars sent to guard the Customs House. This would prove to be no ordinary protest.
Captain Preston, the commanding officer of the Customs House, ordered his troops to fix bayonets, hoping to frighten the Bostonian rioters into backing away.
Unfortunately, this act of aggression only heightened the tension in the street and more projectiles were hurled at the quaking line of regulars.
One stone hit Private Hugh Montgomery in the head, causing the frightened young man to discharge his weapon into the crowd. Perhaps thinking that an order to fire had been given, the rest of the British soldiers let loose a volley.
When the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying and three more injured. The names of the fallen, later to be eulogized as the first victims of the Revolution, are as follows: Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell.
Popular belief has it that Attucks, an African American, was the first casualty. As poignant as this version of events is, there is no firm evidence to support this claim.
Regardless of who was the first to fall, the killing of supposedly unarmed civilians set the city of Boston afire.
The British soldiers were saved from a lynching by an unlikely source: future President John Adams, then an attorney in Boston.
Despite public sentiment firmly against his clients, Adams led a fiery defense in court. No matter how well-spoken his arguments, though, Adams was fighting an uphill battle and two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. Their thumbs were branded with an “M” as punishment.
It didn’t take long for the unfortunate event to be taken up as a banner by both parties: the British and the American Patriots.
On their part, the British found the blood-thirsty response to be further proof of the colonists’ colonial (uncivilized) manners.
For a group of patriots called the Sons of Liberty, the massacre was a wanton act of aggression by the imperial powers and a PR opportunity ripe for the picking.
Paul Revere, a member of the Sons of Liberty, immortalized the bloody night when he made an engraving of the event.
Featured in local newspapers, Revere’s version of the massacre appears under the title “The bloody massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.”
Words certainly have power to stir the imagination and change the minds of readers. However, as squiggles and lines intelligible only to the literate, words had their limits in colonial America.
Literacy in New England at the time is difficult to gauge, but probably sat somewhere around 85 percent for men and half that for women, according to a report from the Colonial Williamsburg Association.
Images, on the other hand, were universal. Everyone in 1770 Boston recognized the image of an anvil as representing a blacksmith shop and every sailor on shore leave knew by heart the images used on the sign of his favorite inn.
When he chose to present to Boston and the colonies at large the horrific events of March 5, Revere crafted his image carefully.
Images, like words, can be read. Let’s read Paul Revere’s engraving.
In Revere’s image, the troop of British regulars appear in a neat row of red that slashes diagonally through the composition.
Rather than harassed and pressed against the Customs House as they actually were, Revere’s British appear to have ample room to move away from the terrified group of Bostonians. In fact, it is the colonists who appear to be pinned in by the out-thrust muskets of the soldiers.
With no room for escape, the men and women in the engraving die in droves as the regular troops heed the order of their captain, who is pictured with sword upraised slightly towards the colonists.
There is quite a bit in a name, but there is even more in an image. Revere’s version of the event is indeed a massacre; one whose blame lies firmly at the feet of the British troops.
The events that followed the massacre only served to further cement the narrative put forward by Revere and the Sons of Liberty.
The Boston Massacre was a massacre because we needed it to be one. “Protest Gone Awry” or “British Troops Heavy-Handed” aren’t the sort of titles that presage a wondrous revolution. They certainly don’t justify armed rebellion. Perhaps some things are just best left unquestioned.
Antone Pierucci is the former curator of the Lake County Museums in Lake County, Calif.
This Week in History: The protest that became the Boston Massacre
- ANTONE PIERUCCI
- Posted On