On March 5, 1770, four men were shot dead by British soldiers on the streets of Boston and four more were wounded in what would later be called the Boston Massacre. Were these men the first martyrs to the cause of independence or were they the victims of a clever propaganda ploy?
By 1768 relations between some segments of the colonial population and the British authorities had become so strained that violence frequently broke out. The heart of the controversy was whether the Parliament in London had the authority to levy taxes on the colonies or whether that power rested in the hands of the legislatures of each colony. Beginning with the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765, Parliament asserted its right, and the colonies stoutly asserted theirs through various acts of defiance. In its latest action Parliament had placed taxes on lead, paint, paper, glass, and tea. Leading the colonial opposition was a secret organization called the Sons of Liberty. Men who had taken a stand on both sides of the issue were beaten or doused in tar and feathers; windows were broken and buildings were burned. From the perspective of the Royal government, the behavior of some Americans had degenerated to the level of unruly children engaged in a temper tantrum. The governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, found it necessary to ask for troops to be sent to Boston to keep order. Already his house had been attacked and his family had been threatened.
The requested troops came in impressive numbers. From Ireland came the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth Infantry Regiments, while the Fourteenth and Twenty-ninth arrived in Nova Scotia along with a company of artillery armed with five cannons. Because Boston had a population of only 18,000 at the time, this was a heavy military presence.
For two years the troops were quartered in and around Boston, and for two years tensions between soldiers and townspeople increased. There were fights between soldiers and civilians over girls, brawls in taverns when too much beer had been consumed, and conflicts when off-duty soldiers took on part-time jobs, depriving local men of work. And there was the biggest issue of all: The soldiers were the living symbol of the authority Parliament claimed to control and tax the colonies.
Of course the local members of the Sons of Liberty took advantage of every clash between townspeople and soldiers to stir up more resentment and to make yet more trouble. Because the leader of the Sons of Liberty was assumed to be Samuel Adams, and because Sam ran a brewery, a crowd of Sons could easily be gathered and moved to action by a few pints of beer.
March 5, 1770, dawned cold and snowy. The bad weather kept many of those who worked out-of-doors away from their jobs. Not surprisingly, many of these men congregated in the taverns around town to chat, keep warm, and drink. All during that day, it was later recorded, a mysterious man identified only as “tall, and wearing a red cloak” made his way around the taverns making inflammatory speeches about the British presence in Boston.
SAMUEL ADAMS, who led opposition to Royal taxes in Boston, was a former tax collector.
By dark there was almost a foot of snow on the streets of Boston, but the military routine of the British army followed its normal course, posting guards at strategic locations around town. Pvt. Hugh White of the Twenty-ninth Regiment was placed on duty at the Custom House. This building was a symbol of the Crown’s authority in Boston, because it was from the Custom House that the hated tax laws were enforced.
At about eight o’clock that night, a group of townspeople began moving down King Street. To all who would listen, they said some soldiers had attacked them, and they were getting clubs and going to find some Redcoat on whom they could take their revenge. As this crowd approached the Custom House, another group, which included children, was gathering at the barracks occupied by the soldiers. There was a good deal of swearing and shouting, and the officers had a lot of trouble keeping their men from wading into the crowd with guns and bayonets.
Church bells began to ring, usually a signal that a house was on fire, and more people came pouring into the street. As the crowd in front of him grew in size, Pvt. Hugh White began to feel decidedly lonely. Many in the mob were armed with clubs, and most of the rest had begun to lob snowballs at him. Convinced he could not control the situation, Private White did just what army regulations said he should do: He called for the officer of the day.
Capt. Thomas Preston had a reputation as a good officer who stayed calm in a crisis. Preston decided to send six privates under Cpl. William Wemms to assist Private White. Because of the delicacy of the situation, Captain Preston followed this relief force himself.
Reaching the besieged private, Captain Preston decided the situation was too dangerous to return to the main guard post. Instead, he formed his little band into a semicircle with their backs to the entrance to the Custom House. In an attempt to cow the crowd, Preston ordered his men to load their guns. Instead of making the crowd afraid, this move made them bolder.
The crowd knew that the soldiers were under regulations that did not allow them to take action against civilians without orders from a civil official. Because no one was present to give such an order, they pressed right up against the bayonets of the soldiers, challenging them to fire. The crowd had forgotten one basic rule: Under the Common Law of Britain, no one was denied the right of self-defense when faced with a deadly attack.
A club came whirling out of the crowd and struck Pvt. Hugh Montgomery, knocking him down. Getting back on his feet, Montgomery fired. So did all the other soldiers. Four men fell to the ground, dead; four others were wounded. The dead were Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, and Michael Johnson, who was also known as Crispus Attucks and was of mixed Native American and African ancestry. He is often called the nation’s first African American hero.
The British soldiers were brought to trial in later weeks, but the court found they had acted in self-defense. The lawyer for the soldiers had secretly been hired by the Sons of Liberty, who wanted the men acquitted as an indicator that more had to be done about the issue. The four dead men became martyrs to those who were pressing for independence. But they may also have been victims of a propaganda ploy that was designed to stir up trouble and, in the soldiers’ retaliation, brought them more than they had bargained for.