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The Bloody Massacre In Kings Street Analysis

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“The Bloody Massacre in Kings Street” is an engraving done by the great Paul Revere. The engraving depicts the British lined up alongside an officer giving an order to fire, indicating that the British soldiers are the aggressors. He goes on to depict smiles on the faces of some of the soldiers as if to show they are enjoying this brutal murder. The Boston air was thick with tensions between the American colonists and the British leading up to March 5, 1770. This tension began to brew in the early 1760s, as American colonists began to disagree with the British who thought themselves to be the superiors. As the decade progressed, the British felt themselves losing their intimidation factor as American colonists ensued peaceful protests in the streets. On March 5th, 1770, British soldiers are at fault for murdering innocent protesters because, they were practicing carelessness, assuming a position of false superiority, and enacting a last ditch effort to remain in control.
As to what happened on the evening of March 5th, 1770, there is a plentiful amount of perspectives that have been studied for centuries. In the decade leading up to the massacre tensions were high, and as it is put by Wheeler and Becker, “the Massachusetts colony became a hotbed of opposition to imperial policy innovations" (81). There was intense strain on the relationship between the British and the American Colonists. More specifically this rising hostility honed in between the Boston residents, and

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