Following the French and Indian War in the American colonies, the British leaders in London had amassed large debt. Thinking it only fair that the colonists themselves pay the debt, Parliament (British lawmakers) passed several laws forcing the colonists in the New World to pay. In a series of laws, including the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, and the Townshend Acts, colonists in the Americas were forced to pay additional taxes on things like sugar, tea, glass, paper, paint, and lead.
The colonists were mad. They thought it was unfair that they should have to pay for all of this war, especially since the colonists had no representative in Parliament to argue for them. Colonists in Boston were especially angry, perhaps because Boston was such a busy shipping port. They began to protest, or express their dissatisfaction with the way the British were ruling the colonies. Eventually, British leadership from across the Atlantic felt the need to send British troops. In Boston alone, there were 4,000 troops and 20,000 colonists. That's one soldier for every four colonists, including women and children. The soldiers' presence just made the colonists angrier.
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On March 5, 1770, the anger and hostility reached a new level in what we now call the Boston Massacre. Initially, the conflict began as an argument between one British soldier and several colonists over an unpaid bill. As the argument escalated, other colonists joined in until the crowd grew to at least 50 angry colonists. They threw sticks and snowballs at the British soldier and other soldiers with him. The British officer of the watch, Captain Thomas Preston, sent more British troops to the area to try to contain the chaos. But when the colonists saw these soldiers, they began to yell and dare them to fire.
One British soldier was hit by something and fell to the ground. As he did, his gun fired. Soon afterwards, other soldiers began firing into the crowd. A total of three colonists died in the violence that night and two colonists later died from their injuries.
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Thirteen people (nine soldiers and four colonists) were eventually arrested and tried for murder. John Adams, who would later become our second President, served as the attorney for the British soldiers. Although he disagreed with their policies, he felt that they had a right to a fair trial, and successfully argued that the soldiers shot in self-defense. Only two British soldiers were found guilty, but not of murder. They were convicted of a lesser crime because they could only read well enough to read the Bible. The colonists were all eventually found not guilty in a separate trial.
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Almost immediately, patriots began using the events surrounding the Boston Massacre to show how evil British rule was. In the court of public opinion, they argued for revolution. Paul Revere is credited with encouraging much of this frustration with an engraving he made illustrating the Boston Massacre. It highlighted the patriots' view of what happened and fueled the fires of revolution.
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In the 1770s, colonists were full of anger and frustration over what they perceived as unfair taxation of everyday items without representation, as well thousands of troops living in their towns. On March 5, 1770, violence erupted in Boston as British troops killed five colonists who were protesting these actions in the Boston Massacre. Other colonists like Paul Revere used this event (and others) to help convince the nation that British rule was no longer in the best interest of the colonies and that they should declare their independence from Great Britain.
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