On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a crowd of American settlers gathered at Boston customs and began to taunt the British soldiers guarding the building. The demonstrators, who called themselves patriots, protested against the occupation of their city by British troops, sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular tax measures adopted by a British parliament devoid of American representation.
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British Captain Thomas Preston, the customs commander, ordered his men to repair their bayonets and join the guard outside the building. The settlers responded by throwing snowballs and other objects at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was shot, causing him to unload his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing an instant later, and when the smoke cleared, five settlers were dead or dying – Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick and James Caldwell – and three others were wounded. Although it is not known whether Crispus Attucks, an African American, was the first to fall as it is generally believed, the death of the five men is considered by some historians to be the first death of the American Revolutionary War. .
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British soldiers were brought to justice and Patriots John Adams and Josiah Quincy agreed to defend the soldiers in a show of support for the colonial justice system. When the trial ended in December 1770, two British soldiers were convicted of manslaughter and had their thumbs marked with an “M” for murder as punishment.
The Sons of Liberty, a patriotic group formed in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act, advertised the “Boston Massacre” as a battle for American freedom and a just cause for the withdrawal of British troops from Boston. Patriot Paul Revere made a provocative engraving of the incident, depicting the British soldiers lined up as an army organized to quell an idealized portrayal of the settler uprising. Copies of the engraving were distributed to all colonies and helped reinforce Americans’ negative feelings about British rule.
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In April 1775, the American Revolution began when British troops from Boston clashed with American militiamen in the Battles of Lexington and Concord. British troops were ordered to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock at Lexington and confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord. Neither mission was accomplished because of Paul Revere and William Dawes, who edged out the British, warning Adams and Hancock and exciting the Patriot minutemen.
Eleven months later, in March 1776, British forces had to evacuate Boston following the successful placement of fortifications and cannons by US General George Washington on Dorchester Heights. This bloodless liberation of Boston ended the hated British occupation of the city for eight years. For the victory, General Washington, Commander of the Continental Army, received the first medal ever awarded by the Continental Congress. It would take more than five years before the War of Independence ended with the surrender of British General Charles Cornwallis to Washington in Yorktown, Virginia.
