Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

March 5, 1770

On the cold, snowy night of March 5, 1770, a mob of American colonists gathers
at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding
the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting
the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768
to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that
lacked American representation.British Captain Thomas Preston, the commanding
officer at the Customs House, ordered his men to fix their bayonets and join the
guard outside the building. The colonists responded by throwing snowballs and
other objects at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was hit,
leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing
a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying -
Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell
- and three more were injured. Although it is unclear whether Crispus Attucks,
an African American, was the first to fall as is commonly believed, the deaths
of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the
American Revolutionary War.The British soldiers were put on trial, and patriots
John Adams and Josiah Quincy agreed to defend the soldiersin a show of support
of the colonial justice system. When the trial ended in December 1770, two
British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded
with an "M" for murder as punishment.The Sons of Liberty, a Patriot group formed
in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act, advertised the "Boston Massacre" as a battle
for American liberty and just cause for the removal of British troops from
Boston. Patriot Paul Revere made a provocative engraving of the incident,
depicting the British soldiers lining up like an organized army to suppress an
idealized representation of the colonist uprising. Copies of the engraving were
distributed throughout the colonies and helped reinforce negative American
sentiments about British rule.In April 1775, the American Revolution began when
British troops from Boston skirmished with American militiamen at the battles of
Lexington and Concord. The British troops were under orders to capture Patriot
leaders Samuel Adams and John Han**** in Lexington and to confiscate the Patriot
arsenal at Concord. Neither missions were accomplished because of Paul Revere
and William Dawes, who rode ahead of the British, warning Adams and Han**** and
rousing the Patriot minutemen. Eleven months later, in March 1776, British
forces had to evacuate Boston following American General George Washington's
successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights. This
bloodless liberation of Boston brought an end to the hated eight-year British
occupation of the city. For the victory, General Washington, commander of the
Continental Army, was presented with the first medal ever awarded by the
Continental Congress. It would be more than five years before the Revolutionary
War came to an end with British General Charles Cornwallis' surrender to
Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.

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