Definition
British troops had occupied Boston since October 1768, after protests against the Townshend duties. On March 5, 1770, a crowd gathered on King Street and threw snowballs, ice, and insults at soldiers led by Captain Thomas Preston, and the soldiers fired, killing five colonists, among them Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native descent. Paul Revere's engraving, which showed soldiers firing on command into a peaceful crowd, spread the Patriot version of the shooting across the colonies. At the trials that autumn, John Adams defended the soldiers, and juries acquitted Preston and most of his men and convicted two soldiers of manslaughter.
Why it matters on the AP exam
The Boston Massacre followed from the Townshend Acts and the stationing of troops, and Patriots used it to portray a standing army in peacetime as a danger to liberty. It came just as Parliament repealed most of the Townshend duties, and a relatively quiet period followed until the Tea Act of 1773. Sourcing questions ask students to compare Revere's engraving with Captain Preston's account in terms of point of view, purpose, and audience, and to explain how propaganda shaped colonial opinion.
In the sources
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations… they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Connections
- Townshend Acts: the duties led to the occupation of Boston that ended in the shooting
- Sons of Liberty: Revere, a Son of Liberty, spread the Patriot account of the shooting
- Coercive Acts: colonists called one of these 1774 laws the Murder Act because it let royal officials accused of killing colonists be tried outside Massachusetts