The Boston Massacre, or the incident on King Street as it was referred to by the British, proved to increase already tense relations between the American colonists and the British. The incident happened on a cold night in Boston, Massachusetts on March 5, 1770. Tensions in the area grew as British troops occupied Boston in an attempt to help enforce unpopular taxes. On that cold evening in Boston, a British soldiers was stationed outside the Custom House. The soldier and a colonist got into a dispute over a debt that the soldier was accused of owing. As the dispute escalated, more colonists encircled the British soldier. As reinforcements arrived to help the solider, the colonists grew increasingly hostile, throwing snowballs, ice, and stones at the soldiers. More colonists came out when bells were ringing in the city, which typically was the signal of a fire.
As the tension continued...
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to grow, one of the British soldiers, Hugh Montgomery was supposedly hit with a club. According to to reports, some of the colonists also shouted "fire," daring the British troops to use their weapons. The end result was that the British soldiers opened fire on the colonists, resulting in 5 colonists falling dead.
The question as to who was at fault is a good one. One could argue that the colonists were at fault for escalating the situation, as well as for taunting and even physically assaulting the soldiers. One could also argue that the British soldiers and their leadership acted irrationally by opening fire on the crowd of colonists, and not doing more themselves to calm the situation. Following the trial, and the defense of John Adams, none of the British soldiers faced any significant punishment for what unfolded on that cold night in Boston.
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The Boston Massacre involved the killing of five people by British soldiers on March 5, 1770. Before the incident, tension had escalated between colonists and the British soldiers sent to Boston to enforce British laws. One of these laws was the the Townshend Acts (which placed tariffs on imported goods).
Before the incident, a mob had collected around a British soldier, who was harassed with insults as he served as a sentry outside the Custom House. Eight other soldiers gathered to protect him, and they were also harassed and pelted with snowballs. The British soldiers fired into the crowd, killing three people instantly and wounding two others who eventually died of their wounds. One of the immediate victims was Crispus Attucks, a former slave of Wampanoag and African heritage who is regarded as the first person to have died in the American Revolution.
Paul Revere's engraving of the event did much to inflame the colonists, but the fault for the incident likely lies on both sides. The British precipitated the event by stationing hated troops in Boston and arming them, while the colonists involved in the event wanted to taunt the soldiers. While the British were armed with muskets (the colonists only had clubs and snowballs), both sides were impulsive and showed a willingness to resort to violence.
There are several groups at fault for the Boston Massacre. Each group shared in the responsibility for what happened on the night of March 5, 1770.
The British government was at fault for sending more soldiers to Boston. They should have known how much the colonists resented their presence in the colony. Yet the British continued to send soldiers there. They also sent very young, inexperienced, and brash soldiers to Boston. The soldiers didn’t have the life experience and knowledge to de-escalate a tense situation. The British could have sent more experienced soldiers to such a volatile area.
The soldiers were at fault also. They acted very brashly and rudely toward the colonists. They acted like this because they had the weapons to back them up if needed. They also were young and cocky and may not have realized how they were inflaming a very tense situation.
The colonists were also at fault. They acted rudely toward the soldiers. They pressed closer to the Custom’s House the British were guarding. They were throwing things at the soldiers. They should not have been surprised that the soldiers responded to the threat they presented. Blame goes to many groups for the Boston Massacre.