Depictions of the Boston Massacre 1770. Though the newspaper article and the engraving had similar overall intentions in their construction, these two images of the Massacre differ in their relation of the actual course of events and in their visual impre

Authors Avatar

Chelsea Greenlee

293: Sophomore Colloquium

1 July 2011

Images of the Boston Massacre

        As the bells of the Old Brick, Brattle Street, and Old South churches sounded throughout the town, hundreds of citizens gathered in the streets of Boston, Massachusetts, on the evening of March 5, 1770.  The ringing of the church bells gathered the outpouring citizens around the sentry post outside the customhouse on King Street.  There, a group of youths were taunting a British sentry named Private Hugh White, pelting him with snowballs and other small items.  The assaults against Private White, and later against the seven relief soldiers led by Captain Thomas Preston, became increasingly violent as the crowd augmented and joined in the agitation.  The mob of citizens dared the soldiers to fire on them.  Private Hugh Montgomery, whose musket was struck by a snowball, stumbled backwards, surprised, and discharged his weapon into the crowd. After a confused pause, the remaining soldiers fired.   Five Bostonian men, including a mixed-race sailor named Crispus Attucks, died, and six more citizens were injured.  This event, termed “The Boston Massacre” by colonial Patriots, was the worst and most publicized of many violent interactions between Boston citizens and British soldiers following the enactment of the Townshend Acts beginning in 1767, which aimed to forcefully exert British power over the colonies, both politically and economically. 

News of the incident spread quickly throughout the British colonies and to Great Britain.  The Boston Massacre was utilized by colonial Patriots and other radicals to fuel the flames of sedition in America against Great Britain and King George III.  Several modes of communication, including both textual and visual representations, depicted the event under the influence of Patriotic biases.  An article printed in the Boston Gazette, and Country Journal on March 12, 1770, relates a highly subjective version of the confrontation on March 5th, condemning the British soldiers involved.  A subsequent engraving of the incident by Paul Revere, called “a Representation of the late horrid Massacre in King St.,” was also used to paint the British soldiers in a negative light and encourage colonial dissention against Great Britain.  Though the newspaper article and the engraving had similar overall intentions in their construction, these two images of the Massacre differ in their relation of the actual course of events and in their visual impressions effecting audiences through each portrayal.  However, despite these dissimilarities, both pieces of propaganda demonstrate the quickness with which news travelled in the few years preceding the American Revolution, as well as the various modes of communication with which news was carried throughout the colonies.

From its conception in 1755, the Boston Gazette, and Country Journal, founded by coeditors and Patriots Benjamin Edes and John Gill, was the voice of colonial radicalism and anti-British sentiment in Massachusetts.  Especially in the few weeks prior to the Massacre, the volatile newspaper reported incidents of violent encounters between the British occupiers and Boston citizens, including the death of eleven-year-old Bostonian Christopher Seider on February 22nd.    The Gazette’s recounting of the Boston Massacre, which appeared on March 12, 1770, portrayed the confrontation between the British soldiers and the townspeople as a violent act perpetrated by oppressive soldiers against an innocent populace. 

Join now!

Before describing the events of the Massacre itself, the Gazette article explains the confrontational tensions within Boston, which allowed for the Massacre and other violent incidents to take place:

THE Town of Boston affords a recent and melancholy Demonstration of the destructive Consequences of quartering Troops among Citizens in a Time of Peace, under a pretence of supporting the Laws and abiding Civil Authority; … but in Reality to inforce oppressive Measures; to awe & controul the legislative as well as executive Power of the Province, and to quell a Spirit of Liberty…[I]t appears too probably from their Conduct, that some ...

This is a preview of the whole essay