Boston Massacre

Once two regiments of British troops were posted to Boston in October 1768, the colonies approached a slippery slope toward revolution. The troops' mission was to ensure collection of taxes due the British crown, but the taxes were deemed unfair by colonials and the troops were unwelcome, taunted, reviled. Tensions built over the next year and a half, and on March 5, 1770, a mob spoiling for a fight met a line of redcoated regulars armed with muskets. Taunts came to a crescendo, ice balls and rocks flew, and within a short, chaotic span, five colonists were dead. In the days following, the official British report referred only to an "unhappy disturbance," but colonial leaders expressed shock at a "horrid massacre." Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and others used the event for propaganda, even while the patriotic John Adams agreed to defend the soldiers who had fired into the mob. It is a tribute to Adams and the democratic spirit of the city that all but one of the soldiers finally were acquitted. But the "Boston Massacre," as it was commemorated in patriotic speeches of the early 1770s, became one of the seminal events of the American Revolution. One of Boston's leading historians remembers this extraordinary event and its long, fascinating aftermath.Allison, Robert J. is the author of 'Boston Massacre ' with ISBN 9781933212104 and ISBN 1933212101.