A Critical Analysis of The Boston Massacre Allocating Blame
It is hardly surprising that publications connected with the American colonialists tended to portray the Boston Massacre as an aggressive action initiated by the British soldiers whereas those publications affiliated with Great Britain tended to characterize the shootings as a form of self-defense against an enraged and out-of-control mob. At the trial that followed, the entire group of British soldiers involved with the shootings was adjudicated innocent of murder charges. Two of the soldiers were eventually convicted of lesser criminal charges of manslaughter.
A critical examination of the available evidence suggests that the most plausible explanation for the gunshots which were initially fired on March 5th, 1770 pertains to a legitimate act of self-defense by British troops rather than an aggressive military assault against peaceful demonstrators. Rather than confronting an essentially peaceful group of American protesters, the British soldiers were instead responding to a repeatedly predictable type of nationalistic antagonism and provocativeness that had grown more pronounced. Contrary to sentimental versions of American history, both at the time and even in some contemporary accounts, the evidence strongly supports a conclusion to the effect that the British soldiers were overwhelmed and surrounded by hostile colonialists calling themselves patriots and that the first shots were actually a legitimate type of self-defense and self-preservation recourse. Such a conclusion does not imply that Great Britain and the British soldiers were entirely innocent, for they most certainly resorted to armed forms of confrontation in order to attempt to project British power and authority, but with respect to the initial gunshots fired on March 5th, 1770 the fact remains that these shots were primarily caused by the rhetoric of the Boston people and the mob of Bostonians which encircled and threatened the British soldiers. In order to substantiate this thesis, that the Boston Massacre was precipitated by the American patriots rather than by the British soldiers, it is necessary to more closely examine the historical context in which the massacre occurred, the contradictory historical accounts of the massacre, and the more comprehensive political battle for supremacy between the American patriots and Great Britain.
Contextual Framework New Laws, British Military, and Patriot Aggressiveness
As an initial matter, demonstrating that the gunshots which resulted in the Boston Massacre were primarily the result of rational perceptions related to self-defense requires an analysis of the historical circumstances surrounding this event. This is true because this was hardly an unpredictable or spontaneous occurrence indeed, there were many previous confrontations between the people of Boston and the soldiers representing Great Britain. Even a cursory review of the historical literature exudes a feeling of inevitability. More precisely, British soldiers at the time were constantly and increasingly being subjected to physical violence and even verbal abuse. The people of Boston reacted to a series of new British laws by grudgingly obeying or beginning to protest British authority. As a consequence of these problems in Boston, Great Britains leaders directed more troops to be stationed in Boston. The tensions between the people of Boston and Great Britain were made worse with the passage of the Townshend Acts, which placed duties on lead, tea, paint, paper, and glass Americans would have to pay tax on any of these items imported from the mother country. Historically, therefore, it is important to acknowledge that the British soldiers had been ordered into a colonial environment in which the Boston people has previously engaged in protests and riots and in which the political authority of Great Britain was increasingly being challenged or rejected. Conflict was probably inevitable and the source of this conflict was deeply rooted in the rebellious attitudes and actions of the American patriots in Boston.
The people of Boston and British soldiers had engaged in many skirmishes and distrust was pervasive. One skirmish, characterized mostly by fights without the use of guns, occurred after British authorities granted British soldiers the right to secure part-time employment in Boston working at the same places as the American colonialists. The American patriots in Boston were already upset about the presence of the British soldiers in Boston and were also upset about the harsh terms of British laws and authority in Boston. They consequently protested, refusing to work side-by-side with the members of the British military, and violence erupted when the Boston workers attempted to force the British soldiers to leave the work sites. It is well-established, for instance, that By early 1770 passions ran at a white hot pitch in Boston and that Fistfights between soldiers and local toughs were commonplace, and on occasion unwary soldiers who strayed into the wrong neighborhood were mugged. The reliable historical accounts therefore demonstrate that the Boston people were the initiators of violent relations with the British troops, they were active aggressors rather than passive victims, and they functioned in this manner in a number of confrontations leading up to the Boston Massacre. An additional illustration is the economically-motivated embargo that Boston elites and workers articulated and implemented in an effort to punish Great Britain. More particularly, Boston devised and enforced to a certain extant a non-importation policy aimed at British goods. To the dismay of the more dedicated Boston patriots, however, many Boston merchants ignored this policy thus dividing Boston into an area with some locals who obeyed British laws and with some locals who became even more anti-British. This polarized the Boston community and led to a more aggressive type of patriot movement in Boston for purposes of this paper, the most relevant part of this polarization is that
The radical leadership, which had struggled in 1765 and 1767 to rouse and shape protests, now fought to keep alive the popular movement and was willing to use force to achieve its ends. It summoned protestors to the streets. Beginning late in February, mobs attacked homes designated by placards that read simply IMPORTER, distinguishing the residence as the domicile of one who was busting the boycott. Demonstrators smeared the houses with filth, broke windows, and shouted threats at the terrified occupants.
Contextually, therefore, the historical facts suggest that as of the early 1770s a group of the colonialists in Boston had actually become radicalized and they considered it just to use violent means to attack British soldiers and Boston citizens that did not agree with their opinions and aspirations. These radical Boston patriots began to use violence against local merchants that did not adhere to their economic embargo of British goods. Military installations and soldiers were attacked. The businesses and personal homes of fellow Bostonians were attacked. A pervasive and indiscriminate pattern of violence and confrontation evolved and the Boston patriots became more confident and much more dedicated to violence as a legitimate extension of existing political conflicts. Prior to the Boston Massacre it can be clearly seen that violence perpetrated by mobs of self-described patriots had been employed to intimidate and to punish British soldiers and Bostonians perceived to be sympathetic to British authority. These facts have led one academic to opine that In this boiling caldron, some tragic event was virtually inevitable. The sort of incident that many had long expectedand which some welcomed, and a few may have deliberately provokedat last occurred on March 5, 1770. In sum, the Boston Massacre was a natural and logical extension of preexisting hostilities and methods. Contrary to some assertions that the massacre was precipitated by British aggression, the evidence instead suggests that the British soldiers fired in self-defense against a violent colonialist mob.
Media Accounts and Discerning the Truth
Part of the confusion regarding the allocation of blame for the Boston Massacre can be traced to contradictory media accounts of the events. The Boston Gazette, for example, was pro-patriot and its accounts were in favor of a version that portrayed the British soldiers as aggressors. Prior to the massacre, the Boston Gazette actually advocated violent conflict with the British soldiers stationed in Boston and must share some of the blame for the deaths and the injuries that resulted. Dating back to 1668, for instance, a Boston Gazette editorialist warned, I have observed that Mobs are represented as most hideous Things. I confess they ought not to be encouraged but they have been sometimes useful. In a free Country I am afraid a standing Army rather occasions than prevent them. This media outlet thus characterized the mobs and the patriots as being just reactions to unjust British laws and illegitimate exercises of British authority. Conclusions drawn by the Boston Gazette must, as a result, be viewed knowing that its writers were clearly supportive of the radicalized mobs and deeply anti-British. It is therefore quite easy to understand why this media outlet would allocate blame for the Boston Massacre to the British soldiers rather than to the mob of patriots.
Indeed, not long after the Boston Massacre on March 12, the Boston Gazette recounted the events leading up to and comprising the massacre in a dramatic way that ignored the actual underlying facts. Specifically, The columns of text were outlined in black border, a traditional way to mark the death of important people. Page three also included a woodcut depicting four coffins and marked with the initials of the four men killed on the scene. The Boston Gazette appealed to emotion, facts were ignored or treated as being of tangential significance, and its writer neither raised nor discussed whether the British soldiers might have been acting in self-defense rather than in a deliberate attempt to kill innocent protesters. Instead, the narrative that evolved in the Boston Gazette was one in which a colonial youth was wounded by a trigger-happy British soldier thus sending the mob in a frenzied effort to help save their friend from death at the hands of the British. The implication was that the British had commenced firing without any provocation, that these shots were fired in rage, and that the deaths and injuries were attributable to British arrogance and therefore constituted a form of premeditated murder.
The event was covered by other media outlets for example, there were media publications that were loyal to the British Empire which created and published different versions of the same events. The Boston Chronicle, for purposes of illustration, anchored several of its narratives on interviews with an actual eyewitness. This eyewitness was a printer and a merchant whom admittedly did not like the Boston patriots, a Mr. John Mein, and he recounted that British soldiers were being attacked and chased by the mob before any shots were fired. As a result of this type of eyewitness testimony, the Boston Chronicle did not blame the British. The Massachusetts Spy and the New York Gazette reported similarly. In these media accounts the Boston patriots were armed with and wielding clubs despite subsequent refutations by members of the patriot mob. The British soldiers were encircled and attacked. Some fled and some were beaten with the clubs before any shots were fired. What emerges from an examination of these media accounts is a situation where British soldiers were forced to fire their weapons in an effort to disperse a hostile and violent mob. Self-defense was not only a relevant consideration, but perhaps the core explanation for the shots which led to the Boston massacre. A court of law, rather than competing media accounts, would eventually attempt to reconcile the conflicting versions of the same events. John Adams was selected as the attorney for the British soldiers charged with murder, ironic given the fact that Adams was well-known as a radical patriot, and it was felt that having a radical patriot as lead attorney for the defense would guarantee a fair criminal trial.
At trial, certain facts were generally established. The events began, for example, when a small group of Boston teens confronted and abused a British sentry. The following facts, unfortunately, were hotly contested. One leading historian argues that The sentry responded by beating one of the youths with his musket. Fire alarms sounded, and soon more than 400 people surrounded the sentry post at the customhouse, throwing snowballs and other items at the soldier. Two other historians, on the other hand, state that the sentry on duty swung at the youth with his musket but missed. As the boy slipped and fell to the ground, the crowd began to pelt the sentry with snowballs and garbage and then closed in on him. Whichever account one accepts, it is reasonable to conclude that at this point the British sentry was not in fear for his life nonetheless, he was outnumbered and being encircled by hostile forces. A crowd of patriots developed in response to which a captain of the British soldiers, one Thomas Preston, arrived alongside the British sentry with seven British soldiers. The evidence, and even Adams statements as defense lawyer, seems to suggest that the mob attacked the British soldiers with clubs, that they proceeded to launch an attack against the nearby barracks used for British soldiers and arms, and that the British only began to fire once these attacks had been commenced. Adams located eyewitnesses to testify that Captain Preston did not order his soldiers to fire their guns, that the mob had initiated the hostilities and the violence, and that the British soldiers ultimately were forced to use their guns in an effort to save themselves from certain death or injury (Krauss, 1998, p. 130). This evidence persuaded the jury to find the soldiers to be innocent of premeditated murder. This was because British law justified killing in self-defense, be it by soldiers or civilians. One historian, in an interesting comparison, has studied the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the shootings at Kent State University and found persuasive similarities regarding how mob violence caused deaths while simultaneously attempting to allocate blame to despised authority figures
For several days, the two groups faced off. Students hurled insults and curses at the troops, while guardsmen were determined to prevent any further student violence. On the morning of May 4, the final confrontation occurred. Students threw rocks and chunks of concrete at the guardsmen, who responded with tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowd. Just after the supply of tear gas ran out, the National Guardsmen believed they heard a single shot. The response was a three-second volley that left four students dead and ten people wounded.
The preponderance of the evidence would therefore tend to support the view that the British soldiers fired their shots in self-defense. The Boston Massacre was caused by the radical Boston patriots rather than by the British soldiers and the attempts to paint the victims as heroic non-violent resisters are simply false and unsupported by all of the available evidence. Particularly persuasive is the fact that the British soldiers were represented legally by a fiercely devoted Boston Patriot, John Adams whom would later become an American president, and even he found the rhetoric suggesting premeditated murder to be too extreme and unsubstantiated.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, facts matter, In the case of the Boston Massacre, the facts strongly suggest that rebellious Boston patriots were killed and injured as a result of their own aggressive patterns of behavior rather than as a result of a premeditated British plan to exercise authority. To the extant that modern reincarnations of the Boston patriots attempt to anchor their legitimacy in the patriot movement of the 1760s and 1770s, as many members of the modern Tea Party do, they must also honestly acknowledge the true nature of this historical movement. The Boston patriots were violent and aggressive. They attacked both the British and fellow Bostonians whom did not agree with their political beliefs. They refused to operate within the structural framework of British laws and legal courts, perhaps justifiably, and this decision to reject British institutional mechanisms for dispute resolution led directly to armed confrontations with British soldiers. The Boston patriots were not non-violent and they were not peaceful quite the contrary, their actions led to the Boston Massacre and paved the road for ultimate American independence from Great Britain.
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