A Revolutionary War: Boston Massacre

People are murdered all the time just like dogs and Boston people, no that’s not a bombing joke unless you want it to be. I’m talking about the Boston massacre that took place in 1770 on March 5th no exploding backpacks were involved but people still hit the bucket with some metal in their chest just not the same kind. If you’re looking to know about how these people die stick around and I'll tell you why they were killed, why it left an impact, and what lead to it cause just remember you only need to kill 4 or more people at once for it to be a massacre.

The Boston massacre is known to the British as the Incident on king street and happened on March 5, 1770. It is also known to be the first battle of the revolutionary war. The British soldiers were being harassed by a British gang/mob and fired into the crowd killing several people in detail a mob formed around a British sentry soldier private Hugh White who was guarding the king's money stored in the customs house at the time. They verbally and physically assaulted the soldier at one point private white fought back and hit a colonist with his bayonet after the colonist perceived to pelt him with snowballs ice and stone. While this was happening for an unknown reason the bells that signaled a fire started ringing bringing large crowds to the street. He eventually fell to the ground and was met up with eight additional soldiers, who were hit by fist, clubs, stones, and snowballs. An eyewitness said that “I heard a noise about 8 o clock and went down to the royal exchange lane” he said that he saw people with sticks. Another eyewitness Ebenezer Hinkley said he heard a guard captain Preston cry out of a guard window fire upon ‘em dam em. It was said that a colonist told them

The government needed to do something about this so to make everyone happy governor Hutchinson put out an arrest for the soldiers that fired and promised there would be a trial. Thomas Preston was tried for murder on the basis that he ordered his men to fire on the crowd, but he was found not guilty and was acquitted. The eight men who fired were tried separately and pleaded innocent only two were found guilty John Adams and Josiah Quincy who were on the defense side of the soldiers trial convinced the jury that the soldiers fired in defense so the two soldiers that were found guilty ended up being branded on the hand and released.

There some things that are important that lead up to the Boston Massacre. In 1763 the British decided to keep an army and tax the colonists to pay for it. The quartering law of 1765 made it so colonists had to house British soldiers and give them 5 pints of beer a day and make them make meals to eat. If they were a farmer and had horses, they would sometimes take the horses A famous remark “go back to England!!” happened when 4 thousand redcoats got off ships and marched through the streets of Boston. In 1768 the redcoats moved to Boston to make sure that people paid their taxes they stayed for 3 years. The redcoats were met with great resistance from the people civilians constantly picked fights even throwing eggs and training their dogs to bite the redcoats. This was caused by the feeling of dislike for the foreign intervention.

The redcoats were also known at the time for being violent the guards would constantly question and harass people all the time. When they left their barracks, many would carry large clubs to assault people. A witness during the massacre said that he saw a stick about 3 feet long strike a civilian on the head he said that it was swung by an off-duty guard trying to help. Some said that the guards would even make sexual remarks often enough that parents were worried about their daughters. Also, many redcoats were searching for off-duty jobs at the time this meant that they would take job opportunities away from many Boston civilians. They even sometimes went too far by wounding people by their cutlass and bayonets and many instances of bad behavior. No incident up the massacre had any shots fired at any civilian. To protect taxes redcoat often vandalized stores selling British goods and harassed store merchants and their customers.

Some events helped fuel the fire on February 22 a bunch of patriots was assaulting a store. A customs officer Ebenezer Richardson lived around the store and wanted to break up the riot, so he fired his gun through his own home window the bullet from his gun struck and killed an 11-year-old boy named Christopher seeder. Several fights broke out with local workers around February 25 British soldiers fought 3 locals no serious blood was shed but it added fuel to the raging flames. The colonist would cry out “no taxation without representation” because of the taxes they were opposed to keeping the army up and running when they believe they didn’t even need it.

Many different factors led to the Boston massacre but it definitely wasn’t a massacre the guards definitely fired out of self-defense of defending the king's money either way they had a legit reason to fire upon the crowd and definitely didn’t do it just to kill so it wouldn’t be a massacre.