The Boston Massacre (1 Viewer)

IntenseSaint

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I'm a bit curious. What did you learn about the Boston Massacre in school(high school or college).

Don't go looking it up if you don't recall(not that I can stop you). I want to hear accounts that you can remember from school or maybe other accounts.
 
I know it happened November 30th, 2009.

fry-see-what-you-did-there.jpg


Nice one!! + Rep
 
Colonists got mad about British taxes - The Townshend Act. There was a riot at the Boston State Capitol. The colonists threw some stuff at the British troops and the troops fired back. It was a rallying cause for the American Revolution. Only a few people really died there. IT was just one of those injustices that got a lot of press and was used to incite American anger with the British.
 
Straight from my history book:

The growing hostility between the colonists and the British soon erupted into violence. In Boston, on the evening of March 5, 1770, an unruly crowd threatened a squad of British soldiers. The soldiers opened fire, leaving an African American named Crispus Attucks and four other colonists dead or dying in the snow. The incident, which became known as the Boston Massacre, added to an already tense situation. Soon after the Boston Massacre, Parliament canceled the Townshed taxes. It kept only the duty on tea as a reminder of authority over the colonies.
I could go on more, but the rest is already know, blah blah blah, all that jazz.
 
Straight from my history book:

I could go on more, but the rest is already know, blah blah blah, all that jazz.

Wow it is amazing how inaccurate some history books are.

Actually the Townshed act was being repealed that DAY. And because this event happened in Boston and there was no way word of the event could travel overseas in one day. Also the event happened between 8-9 pm at night. The incident had started with youths throwing snow balls and ice at a soldier. One of the onlookers had rang the bell in town that is normally used to alert a fire and this cause many more to show up on the scene. Soon there was nearly a crowd of 100 confronting the soldiers and by now it was dark. The soldiers were holding fast and did not initially fire. The crowd was actually trying to entice the soldiers to fire, taunting and daring them.

I have to wonder though. What was the relevance in naming only the black man who was killed of the 5?
 
Wow it is amazing how inaccurate some history books are.

Actually the Townshed act was being repealed that DAY. And because this event happened in Boston and there was no way word of the event could travel overseas in one day. Also the event happened between 8-9 pm at night. The incident had started with youths throwing snow balls and ice at a soldier. One of the onlookers had rang the bell in town that is normally used to alert a fire and this cause many more to show up on the scene. Soon there was nearly a crowd of 100 confronting the soldiers and by now it was dark. The soldiers were holding fast and did not initially fire. The crowd was actually trying to entice the soldiers to fire, taunting and daring them.

I have to wonder though. What was the relevance in naming only the black man who was killed of the 5?


Honestly, I don't care about what's going on, as long as I pass my tests, have my GPA go up, and Go to college, Get My Degree, Get A Good Job, and Die Happy. For all I care, they could have all been dancing to "I love to Sing-a", but if it's in the book, I'm putting it on the exam, and if they mark it wrong, then I got a problem with whoever wrote the book.
 
It was a relatively benign moments that was blown out of proportion by twitter, cell-phones and the internet. Once the initial confrontation was captured by a cell-phone, emailed to a computer, edited to make the soldier look bad, and distributed and discussed over twitter, and the like, things got out of hand.
 
Yeah this terrible event happened when a group of colonial protesters angering at the laws passed by Parliament under the direction of King George III(The Stamp Act, the taxes on tea, the very notion that the British Parliament could tax the American colonies). There was a small to perhaps moderately sized crowd of colonials throwing snowballs at British soldiers, rotten food, calling them lobster-backs. All of this happened at the royal perfect offices in Boston(sort of where the British conducted business affairs like mailing, or where most official business happened). Later that night, a group of British soldiers were standing firm against the taunts when someone heard a shot go off(who did it? There have been several different suspects I've looked at and still can't find one that really stands out most of all) But when this shot went off, the soldiers who were at there posts returned fire into the crowd, killing several people, one of them a free black sailor named Crispus Attacks, who had been involved with the Sons of Liberty(Sam Adams group of famed racketeers and rabble-rousers).

There was an immediate outcry over all of the colonies. The incident itself was eulogized by many upcoming Founding Fathers like Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams as an act of tyranny in the enforcement of an unjust law. Heated rhetoric for sure, although Abigail Adams pretty much told her husband that the crowd in all likelihood provoked the soldiers into doing this action, therefore they were partly to blame at least. John Adams was a successful lawyer in Massachusetts and very committed to the colonial cause, but good prudence and foresight was paramount over his worst objections over British treatment. He defended the soldiers at their trial and did a damn fine job at proving that indeed those soldiers may have been provoked after all to shoot when they heard a gun shot go off and they didn't know at first where it initially came from.

You have to tip your hat to John Adams, he was far from being a fan of the British enacting unjust laws on the colonial governments without there consent, but the highest principle of his legal profession made him still see the law as the main arbiter, to give those soldiers the right to a fair and reasonable defense without letting the mob mentality take over.


IMO, the worst domestic incident in American History happened over the July 4th weekend of 1863 with the NYC Draft riots. That was the first time in American history where US Soldiers fired on its own citizens. Almost 100 years later from the Boston Massacre. Those Draft riots were in response to hard line nativists, hating the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves in the South, hatred of newly arrived immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe, notably Irish immigrants. They burned black orphanages, attacked Union soldiers that were stationed on guards or at their posts, ransacked Horace Greeley's newspaper The New York Sun and personal materials. It was the 4th of July from hell if you lived in that vicinity, and it wasn't just expressed in NYC either, there were numerous Southern sympathizers in Washington DC right under the nose of the Federals, in fact a well known DC socialite named Belle Boyd(IIRC) was a notorious personality who employed prostitutes in her service to get information from well-placed Union officers in exchange for sexual favors. Using that to entice them, she'd gather what she had heard and then pass it on to a courier who then would relay to Confederate leaders.

Sure it was the mid 19th century and not exactly reaching Cold war espionage sex tactics, but no one can say that even back 150 year ago using the T and A approach wasn't an option for spying on your enemy behind enemy lines.
 
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it seems like one of those events that i feel like i knew something about in school, but have long since forgotten... to be honest, the first thing i thought of was The Boston Strangler (totally unrelated, i know.)
 
It happened against the Yankees in 2004
With a roided up Big Pappi and Manny.
 

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