The Boston Massacre Propaganda

The British soldiers were anything but loved by the American colonists in the 1770s. They maliciously planned an attack on the soldiers because of their hate. Many townspeople gathered together in effort to strike against the British presence. The men were just doing their job trying to keep order in Boston, but the people still taunted them. The soldiers were being tried for murder because they fired at the people, but those charges should not have existed. The crowd initially attacked the soldiers, not the other way around. It was also dark out so the soldiers did not know of the number of colonist attackers. The soldiers heard the word fire coming from the crowd, confusing the voices with Captain Preston’s. The incident referred to as the

After the French and Indian War, tension was increasing in the English Colonies due to over taxation laws. In March of 1770, hatred between the colonists and the British soldiers erupted into fighting in an event known as the Boston Massacre. The Boston Massacre was a significant event in the American Independence movement. The source of the conflict with the British troops and the Bostonians was the Townshend Act in 1767, three years prior to the massacre. The primary sources in this collection of documents are of different accounts of the massacre: a pamphlet of the testimony of William Wyatt, an article from the Boston Gazette and Country Journal, a sketch by Paul Revere, an account of Captain Thomas Preston, and a court case from John Adams. These documents expose the turmoil of that day from different perspectives of Bostonians and British soldiers. They also show how some colonial leaders used this event to advance the patriot cause. The account of Captain Thomas Preston said that he tried to

During this time, the British soldiers injured many people, killing at least five of them. No one knows for sure why these incidents occurred, but it is evident that the British felt threatened by the Colonists. Many differents accounts of the Boston Massacre exist, therefore it is difficult to determine which of them are completely accurate.

On March 5 1770, a union of colonists gathered at the Customs House where they protested and harassed soldiers standing outside. These colonists were representing The Sons of Liberty, a secret organization aiming to rebel against the British Parliament. There was an abundance of tension between the colonists and Great Britain after new taxes were passed and British troops arrived in Massachusetts to enforce them. After many hours of chanting and protesting a shot was fired; the atrocious event left five men dead. The question society still ponders over 200 years later is what really happened and whose fault was it? The Boston Massacre initiated because of miscommunication; it was not a massacre but a mutual riot.

Beginning on March 5th of 1770, several men grouped around a sort of British redcoats and began to curse at them while throwing snowballs at their frames. This angered the soldiers, and even scared them a little bit as well. In reaction they fired their weapons and watched the patriots fall to the ground. In the description of Paul Revere’s engraving, The Bloody Massacre in King Street states, “When the shooting ended, several people were dead and more were wounded.” This engraving had been sent throughout the colonies, therefore raising awareness of the tragedy that had happened just weeks before. In particular, it made the redcoats look guilty and the colonists to be innocent. This was probably because in the engraving, the patriots were on the ground, injured and defenseless while the soldiers held their guns high, in perfect bodily conditions. Thus giving it its name, the “Boston Massacre.” This gave the colonists the idea that the British were cruel and unjust, which made them want to fight back even

Boston had withstood the life with British soldiers before the Boston Massacre in 1770 for two years. The British Army landed on the shores of Boston in October of 1768. The citizens of the city had endured the everyday life of the soldiers as they rose in the morning, trained throughout the day and went back to their tents in the evening. Not only did they see them every day they communicated with them in town when the soldiers came into the town to buy goods and utilized services within the city limits of Boston. A very famous citizen of Boston, Paul Revere, described what he saw as the solider came into the city. Revere said, “They (the British) formed and marched with insolent parade, drums beating, fifes playing and colors flying, up King Street. Each soldier has received 16 rounds of powder and ball.” Troops of the 29th, unable

The death of these three men were dubbed the Boston Massacre as a way to show the heartlessness and tyranny of the British. With the British soldiers squandering colonist’s land, opportunities, and even lives the colonists began utilizing less conservative ways to fight back against the

The Boston Massacre was and is still a debatable Massacre. The event occurred on March 5, 1776. It involved the rope workers of the colonial Boston and two British regiments, the twenty-ninth and the fourteenth regiments. Eleven people were shot in the incident; five people were killed and the other six were merely wounded. The soldiers and the captain, Thomas Preston, were all put on trial. All were acquitted of charges of murder, however the two soldiers who fired first, Private Mathew Killroy, and Private William Montgomery, the two soldiers were guilty of manslaughter. The causes were numerous for this event. There had been a nation wide long-term dislike towards the British, and a growing hatred towards them by the people of Boston.

The Boston Massacre was the end result of many factors that had been building up in the colonies since the French and Indian War. England was deeply in debt and expected the colonies to share their burden. The colonies being forced to pay the taxes that had been avoided for a long time. The British tax collectors never had forced everyone to pay taxes simply because England didn’t need the money. England was making money off of the colonies trade goods so they did not absolutely need to collect the tax money from the colonists. Also, for about 140 years Britain passed laws of Salutary Neglect allowing colonists to run their own government. By letting the colonists have their own forms of government and then taking away their freedoms to

While the British were in the streets of Boston the colonists decided to protest the king. The colonists were protesting that the taxes that the kind had on the people were unfair. The colonists started with using verbal abuse, but eventually they started throwing things and beating the soldiers. The colonists were saying things like “Fire you bloody lobsters” and throwing things such as snowballs, pebbles, rocks, sticks basically anything they could find. Since the colonists were threatening the British they had a reason to fire. A report made shows that one colonist was physically beating one of the British guards. This colonist had no charges filed against him, but the British soldier was the one who fired the first shot. The British was put in jail for using self defense against the

In the Revolutionary War, compromise was no longer an option when their was the the Boston Massacre. According to Independence Hall Association it states, The Boston Massacre was on March 5, 1770 it was a fight between a mob of patriots and British soldiers.The British soldiers were shooting at the colonists and the colonists were defending themselves with snowballs, sticks and stones. During the fight Captain Preston and his soldiers shot at a ropemaker named Samuel Gray, a Sailor named Crispus Attucks, and a Mariner named James Caldwell. The British also wounded eight other colonists,

From over taxing to unfair courts, The Boston Massacre was the foundation that helped tip the tide towards Americans wanting absolute freedom from monarchy. The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a patriot mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Fearing for their life, the soldiers fired, killing five “unarmed” citizens. Even though their actions were somewhat justified, the revealing that they were let off with little to no charges, which took place in their own courts, caused citizens to question even more their loyalty

The colonists, on the other hand, were depicted as innocent, and not trying to stir any sort of trouble. Once the troops reached King’s Street, a crowd formed, waiting. The mob consisted of about 30-40 colonists, who were said to be taunted and attacked by the troops. Once opposing each other, the crowd launched snowballs at the soldiers, causing the captain of the troops-- Captain Preston-- to give the order to fire, apparently saying, “‘Damn you, fire, be the consequence what it will!’” One of the founders of The Sons of Liberty-- a group of colonists who “helped spark the American Revolution”, Patriot Paul Revere, “made a provocative engraving of the incident [the Boston Massacre], depicting the British soldiers lining up like an organized army”.

A battle between colonists and soldiers, a tragic event that killed five colonists, this is known as the Boston Massacre. This event was not an accident as some may claim, this was a bloody massacre. A lot of people like to only blame it on the soldiers, and some like to blame it only on the colonists. But no matter who started and finished it it was not an accident. The events that happened on March 5, 1770 were not justified in any sense.

The Boston Massacre is considered by many historians to be the first battle of the Revolutionary War. The fatal incident happened on March 5 of 1770. The massacre resulted in the death of five colonists. British troops in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were there to stop demonstrations against the Townshend Acts and keep order, but instead they provoked outrage. The British soldiers and citizens brawled in streets and fought in bars. “The citizens viewed the British soldiers as potential oppressors, competitors for jobs, and a treat to social mores”. A defiant anti-British fever was lingering among the townspeople.