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Boston Massacre in 1770
Engraving of the Boston Massacre
made by Paul Revere
- as a memorial to the five victims
of the shooting.
Threatened with clubs and taunted
by jeers, the British redcoats fired into a heckling mob at Boston's
"Bloody Massacre." When the smoke and confusion cleared, five
Bostonians were dead or dying. John Adams, a lawyer (and future
President), helped win acquittal for six of the soldiers, but his
cousin, Sam Adams, a patriot leader, called the incident a "plot to
massacre the inhabitants of Boston" and used it to rouse fellow
colonists to rebel.
Boston's Bloody Massacre, March 5, 1770
An eyewitness account of
what happened:
"A number of
persons, to the amount of thirty or forty, mostly boys and youngsters,
who assembled ... near the sentry at the Custom-house door, damned him,
and bid him fire and be damned; and some snow ball were throwed ... I
saw a party of soldiers come from the main guard, and draw themselves up
... the people still continued in the street, crying, 'Fire, fire, and
be damned,' and hove some more snow balls, whereupon I heard a musket go
off, and in the space of two or three seconds, I heard the word 'fire'
given ... and instantly the soldiers fired one after another." |
