The Boston Massacre: The Incident On King Street

Call me a tory or not, but the british in the Boston Massacre were not guilty of murder and opening fire on crowd for no reason. The british completely and utterly acted in self defense on March 5,1770. Know you might say well they placed taxes on us… NEWS FLASH… this is about whether this is murder or done in self defense, not taxes. Trust me this king’s Street mess was definitely in self defense.

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

On March 5, 1770, five people died at the hands of British soldiers in Boston, Massachusetts. Based on an analysis of the eyewitness testimonies, medical examiner’s reports, and the crime scene, it was determined that the soldiers did not commit murder, but rather acted in self-defense. Many eyewitness testimonies clearly describe the mob as threatening to the point where the soldiers felt they were in danger. Dr. John Jeffries, the surgeon attending to Patrick Carr, who died during the incident, states that Carr said the soldier who shot him “had no malice, but fired to defend himself.”

This statement disproves the definition of massacre because it was not an indiscriminate slaughter of people. If the soldiers were begin attacked it was merely self defense. Mr. Woodall was not the only account that stated the soldiers were being attacked by the townspeople before any firing took place, Jane Whitehouse said that same. She said that one man threw wood at one of the soldiers. Further more looking at the Revere painting, Preston’s deposition and also testimonies from people that gave their account of the story we can conclude that calling it the “Boston Massacre” would be stretching the truth of an event that has been warped for years.

The Boston Massacre was influenced by the British soldiers first shooting the colonists. Due to the commands of Captain Preston, the soldiers were forced to engage in fighting, said by William Wyatt. In his account, the British were ordered around by Captain Preston and were not in the usual formation for a battle. From other perspectives, like George Sanderlin and Andrew, they had heard the captain boom, “Fire! Be the consequences at will.”

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

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

Personal accounts from Daniel Cornwall and Matthew Murray show that Preston did not give any order. Murray testified that “[he] heard no order given… [and] was looking at the Captain when the [gun] was fired” (Matthew Murray). Cornwall attested “[he] was within two yards of [Preston]… [and] was looking at him [but did] not hear any order”

Due to the impartial view of the British and the desire of the colonists to remove the British the massacre was the perfect event to propagandize, resulting in war and restoration of power with the upper class. The issue of perspective as it pertains to the Boston Massacre is the key point to consider how an individual should view it. The name of the event even gives it an inflated nature calling it a “massacre” when only five people died. While the soldiers were declared guilty, consideration must be given to the fact that they were tried in Boston.

The soldiers were in the wrong for firing upon citizens and killing a few innocent bystanders, but the citizens were in the wrong for causing a riot and attacking the soldiers with sticks, stones, and snowballs. Eric Hinderaker puts it this way, “the shootings triggered a war of words in which truth was the first casualty” (Smith). The reason the Boston Massacre was labeled a massacre is because the first publications of newspaper labeled the altercation a massacre and blaming the British. Samual Adams and Paul Revere used these publications to put a negative shadow on the Coy 3 British and make it look like the British planned the attack. After the dust settled, they

There were many disagreements and because of those, many events were the cause of the American Revolution. These events included bloodshed by others, peoples rights weren’t enforced, individuals didn’t receive freedom, and our country was just not yet whole. Despite of the causes of why the road to Revolution took place there were effects afterwards. When American Revolution was over with the The Declaration of Independence came into place, treaties were signed, and the Bill of Rights. Now these effects/events were amazing, it helped our country tremendously.

Although there are many historians that go back and forth between believing that the Boston Massacre was murder or self defense. But it is clear that is was an act of murder on the part of the Red-Coat soldiers. There were many pieces of evidence leaning onto the side of murder, the first one being that every murder has a motive right? This motive involved a colonist named Samuel Gray and a soldier named Killroy. A day before the massacre happened, Killroy and Samuel got in a fight in Samuels shop.

The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a “patriot”. They were throwing sticks, snowballs, and trash at a group of British troops. The loyalists got very annoyed with the patriots so they shot into the mob killing five. The riot began when around 50 colonists attacked a British sentinel. A British officer called in for additional troops

I believe the incident in Boston was just a terrible tragedy. The incident was a tragedy because the soldiers wouldn't have opened fire if the 2 men hadn't stepped out of the bar and started throwing snowballs, making a bunch of unneeded noise causing lots of people to come out of their homes. Massacre means the killing of lots of people almost like it was on purpose, yet it is too big of a word for this situation because only 3 people died on the spot. It would’ve been a massacre if the soldiers opened fire right away on the 2 men and a lot of other people.

The definition of a massacre is a specific incident which involves the killing of people, although not necessarily a crime against humanity. The number of killed ranges from just a few people to many millions. Don’t let the name fool you, this massacre resulted in the death of five, a small number compared to other events. This fact did not prevent people from using this against the soldiers and create an even bigger stir of it. While colonists saw it as a brutal attack that was unprovoked and simply began by children joking around with soldiers and throwing snowballs, the British soldiers claimed that it was planned by the citizens who attacked them in a mob with clubs and snowballs packed so densely they were mounts of solid ice and provoked them to fire.