Site of the Boston Massacre
Things were tense in Boston in the years before the American Revolution. After riots over the Stamp Act of 1765 and boycotts of the Townshend Acts, Redcoats were stationed in Boston in 1768 to enforce the unpopular acts. On March 5, 1770 a riot broke out between colonists and the British Regulars which would become known in the patriot press as the Boston Massacre. It began when Private White, the sentry on guard at the Customs House, struck Edward Garrick, a young apprentice wigmaker, in the face with the butt of his musket for insulting White’s commanding officer. An angry mob of hundreds of Bostonians formed around White, and eight Redcoats came to reinforce him. Pelted by snowballs, rocks, and finally a club thrown by the crowd, the soldiers opened fire. Five colonists were killed, including Crispus Attucks, a mixed-race African and Native American man who in the time leading up to the Civil War would be heralded by Abolitionists as an African-American martyr. Patriot activists seized upon the riot for propaganda - Paul Revere made a famous engraving dramatizing the violent moment when the soldiers fired, and Samuel Adams called the event a “bloody massacre.” Significantly, however, John Adams, the future second President of the USA, defended the British soldiers in court and saved them from the death sentence. Today, the site of the Boston Massacre, located in front of the Old State House, is marked by a simple circle of cobblestones in the pavement.
- Put yourself in the shoes of the rioters in the famed Boston Massacre
- See the famous engraving by Paul Revere
