The Boston Massacre

The Boston Massacre was and is still a debatable Massacre. The event occurred on March 5, 1776. It involved the rope workers of the colonial Boston and two British regiments, the twenty-ninth and the fourteenth regiments. Eleven people were shot in the incident; five people were killed and the other six were merely wounded. The soldiers and the captain, Thomas Preston, were all put on trial. All were acquitted of charges of murder, however the two soldiers who fired first, Private Mathew Killroy, and Private William Montgomery, the two soldiers were guilty of manslaughter. The causes were numerous for this event. There had been a nation wide long-term dislike towards the British, and a growing hatred towards them by the people of Boston. Even before the two regiments were sent in to monitor Boston there was a growing feud before the two sides.

The population of Boston in 1765 was over twenty thousand people, and it was the second largest city in the country. The city was split up into two political factions, the loyalists, also known as the "Tories" were loyal to the British nation and respected and followed their policies. The other group was the Patriots, they too pledged alliance with the British, but they also believed strongly in their colonial rights, and more often then not went against parliamentary decisions. America still had not declared independence from England in 1765, and was expected to follow the rules of the parliament and the King. The government like all other states was structured differently, but the people elected their representatives. Unlike the British who let the people vote, but they are "indirectly represented" by Parliament. The stamp act was one of the first things Britain did to upset the colonies. John Adams who was a prospering young lawyer at the time, called the Stamp Act "That enormous engine, fabricated by the British Parliament, for battering down all the rights and liberties of America." The stamp act put a tax on legal documents, and other paper items. The Americans called this "Taxation without representation", because they didn't have any elected officials in Parliament, who were representing them. The Americans petitioned the administration, but the King and Parliament simply ignored our pleas. This act caused the formation of the loyal nine.

The Loyal Nine were a group of several Boston artisans and shopkeepers, including the publisher of the Boston Gazette. They made the difference known between top leadership and crowd. The Loyal Nine did a little bit of a recruiting job before taking their actions to the streets. They got the north and south end gangs to unite and work for them. These two groups for years had taken place in a bloody battle each November fifth in order to celebrate Pope's Day. The convincing of radicals like Sam Adams, to fight the tyranny of the English instead of each other, brought the groups together. The leader of the new united gang of northerners and southerners was Ebenezer MacIntosh, the previous leader of the south end gang. MacIntosh, a shoemaker, fought in the French and Indian war, and also had fought against poverty practically his whole life.

The Stamp Act caused a number of riots to break out; the Loyal Nine and their gang conducted these riots. The first riot was directed toward Andrew Oliver, an aristocrat and a wealthy merchant. He was also the brother-in-law of the lieutenant governor of Boston, Thomas Hutchinson. Oliver, and others alike were to benefit from the Stamp Act. The Loyal nine hung an image of Oliver from the liberty tree. Bostonians awoke to this effigy on August 14, 1765. There was a sign on the doll, which read, "What greater joy did New England see/ Than a stampman hanging on a tree." When night fell MacIntosh and his mob took the effigy of Oliver down from the tree, and went down to the docks and dismantled the building, which they thought would be the center of the Stamp Act, in a matter of minutes. They then continued to Fort Hill, a small hill that overlooked Oliver's house, and proceeded to walk all over the doll and then burned it. Then they stormed Oliver's house looking to kill him but he was not there and they destroyed the interior of his house. Oliver had escaped to a nearby island that held the Castle William where he hid out. He was later talked into resigning his position as distributor of stamps.

The next target of the mob was the governor himself. Thomas Hutchinson was believed to support the Stamp Act; he had also grabbed four of the primary political offices, and had secured political appointments for family members. This made him a primary target of mob retaliation. The mob descended on Hutchinson's house with a will. If Hutchinson hadn't escaped through the backyards of the neighboring houses he probably would have been killed. The mob continued to turn Hutchinson's house into a shack. If the night had lasted a little bit longer they would have torn the whole structure to the ground.

The acts of the mob were not the only form of fighting the Stamp Act. Merchants across the colonies refused to import British goods. The first intercolonial meeting ever was held, representatives of nine out of the thirteen colonies met in New York to petition the King and Parliament. On March 17, 1766 about four months after the stamp act was put into effect, Parliament repealed it. However news traveled very slowly back then, so the colonies didn't hear about the repeal until May. The colonies gave a "sigh of relief" although their content feelings would not last for long.

The acting prime minister of England, Charles Townshend had more plans for the colony. He introduced a new bill that called for new customs duties on imports from England. The part about the bill that really alarmed the colonists, was that the revenue collected from the tax was going to be used to pay the salaries of royal officials in the colonies. This would make the officials independent of colonial assemblies. Sam Adams and James Otis, both active Patriots sent a letter to all the colonies asking for a "nonimportation agreement". While this was going on the prime minister had sent out five commissioners to monitor the collection of the new taxes in Boston. These commissioners were given the right to enter into any random household at any given time to search for smuggled goods. The colonists hated the tax collectors and gave them little of their cooperation .

The officials went too far in June when they falsely accused John Hancock of having illegally smuggled goods aboard his boat, the Liberty. A mob of angry colonists went after the officials, and forced them to flee to the safety of Castle William, which was located on an island in the harbor. When the British officials caught wind of this they ordered four regiments