Boston Massacre: A History from Beginning to End

What makes a shooting a massacre? If a mob of hundreds is facing down eight soldiers and five citizens are killed, is that the Boston Massacre or the Incident on King Street? As was the case with so many of the tumultuous events in America’s colonial history, the answer depended upon whether one regarded oneself as a British subject or a free American.

Loyalists and patriots were already at odds over the idea of separation from Great Britain, and the Boston Massacre, which John Adams regarded as the day the foundation of American independence was laid, catapulted the concept into the forefront of Boston’s fate. Future President Adams, although a patriot by inclination, agreed to serve as the defense attorney for the British soldiers charged in the shooting; he believed that everyone was entitled to a fair trial. As he conjured the events of March 5, 1770, in the courtroom, he masterfully instructed the jury to rely on evidence rather than emotion. Was an order to fire upon the crowd given? Were the soldiers acting in self-defense? Were the men who made up the crowd innocent victims or, as Adams attested, a mob?

The Boston Massacre played an integral part in the incubation of American independence, but it also proved that while a new nation might spring forth in violence, it would not neglect its allegiance to the law.