The Boston Massacre
A Behind-the-Scenes Look At Paul Revere's Most Famous Engraving
Background
Under the authority of theTownshend Acts, Customs
Commissioners were appointed to collect taxes on many items of colonial
trade. These Customs Commissioners were paid out of the money they collected,
so they had incentive to collect as much as they could. Armed with general
search warrants, known as 'writs of assistance', they managed to alienate
the merchant/trading population in Boston in a very short time. To defend
themselves against these tactics, some of the merchant/traders hired sailors,
dockworkers and others to harrass the Customs Commissioners in various
ways, including ransacking their homes and roughing them up on the streets.
The Customs Commissioners appealed to their superiors in London for help.
Thus, in September, 1768, two regiments of British troops were sent to
Boston to protect them from the mobs. Over the next year and a half, tensions
grew between the troops and the townspeople of Boston. Inevitably, an incident
occurred.
On the night of March 5, 1770, a sentry stood
guard before the Custom House on King Street where a number of these British
soldiers were quartered. It was a clear but cold night with about a foot
of snow on the ground. About 8:00 p.m., an apprentice boy appeared, sent
by his master, a barber, to collect a shaving bill from this sentry. Some
kind of fight broke out between them and a crowd began to gather. Someone
rang the bells in a nearby church -- the signal for a fire when rung on
a day other than Sunday. Within a few minutes the crowd in front of the
Custom House may have numbered about two hundred. The sentry was frightened
and called for six other soldiers from inside the Customs House to join
him outside. They fixed their bayonets on their rifles and stood shoulder
to shoulder. Many people in the crowd were armed with clubs and began shouting
or whistling a high-pitched whistle. Some threw snowballs at the soldiers.The
distance between the crowd and soldiers grew smaller and smaller. Suddenly
shots were fired by the soldiers. Five in the crowd were killed and six
wounded.
In spite of the fact that the seven soldiers
charged with murder for this act were later acquitted by a Boston jury,
for men like John Hancock, Sam Adams -- John's cousin -- and Paul Revere,
this event was immediately seized upon as an example of British tyranny.
They saw it as a way to stir up anti-British sentiment among their fellow
colonists, hoping, eventually, that such resentment might grow into a movement
for independence. Within three weeks of this event, Paul Revere had produced
color engravings of it. He did not entitle it an 'incident' or 'shooting',
but "The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street". A 'massacre' was
a term that suggested a much deeper villainy on the part of the British.
And, as you can see, Revere's historic engraving manipulated the truth
of the event in other ways in order to use it for his own political purposes.
The Engraving
Notice
that Revere's engraving shows a blue sky. Only a small crescent moon suggests
that the riot actually occurred after dark on a cold winter night. Notice,
too, the absence of snow and ice on the street. And Crispus Attacks --
a black man who was among the five who were killed, is seen lying on the
ground closest to the British soldiers and is portrayed to be white. Notice
how the British Grenadiers are shown to be viciously shooting their rifles
into a group of not more than fifteen well-dressed and proper-looking colonial
citizens. Notice the innocent little puppy in the foreground -- perhaps
another soon-to-be victim of the inhuman British. Finally, notice that
the color of the British uniforms is the same red as the blood of the innocent
townspeople.
Few historians would deny that the "Boston
Massacre" proved to be a milestone in America's road to independence. By
popularizing the tragic event, Paul Revere's print became the first powerful
influence in forming an outspoken anti-British public opinion.
Answer the following questions:
1. What was a 'writ of assistance? Who used it and for what?
2. How many people were killed in the Boston Massacre?
3. Identify two ways that Paul Revere's print of the Boston
Massacre differs from what really happened.
Return
to Study Guide #3
Revised
January 28, 2001
by Tom Gallup, e-mail address: [email protected]
West Valley College
http://www.westvalley.edu/wvc/ss/gallup/gallup.html