- Distance : 0.00
- Attraction : Memorial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre_Monument
Turn left!
Before I tell you about this very controversial memorial, I want to tell you that when we’re done here, head back out the way we came and take a left, so we’re heading back down the path we were on.
So, what makes this memorial so different from any other memorial built to remember an event of the past? Well, most memorials usually tend to be accurate in what they represent, I mean they’re here to tell a historical story, right? We can trust that the stories we hear and clearly memorialize, would be told with honest, factual integrity, with no room for political gain, right? That’s how I would assume it would be. Unfortunately, politics are politics, whether over 200 years ago or 2 hours ago, it simply comes down to who’s story gets to be told the loudest.
There were a lot of objections to the erecting of this monument as many members of the Massachusetts Historical Society strongly opposed it, and rightly so. It’s a sad story, the Boston Massacre, for more reasons than one. The title of this memorial is telling in and of itself. One wouldn’t normally use the word ‘massacre’ when you’re talking about the death of five people. It would seem to be a little dramatic, but if you’re trying to create drama to sway emotions of the people, then massacre is the perfect word to use, whether it’s accurate or not. If you’d rather believe the story taught in schools, and the story told in the carved pictured before you, in that the British soldiers attacked and killed innocent colonists, then this will be a stop on our tour you’ll want to skip. If you’d rather hear the truth, from the mouths of witnesses who testified in the trial, then get ready to go back in time while I tell you the facts about what happened that fateful night in 1770.
It was early evening, March 5th, 1770, when a young man named Edward Garrick insulted the soldier on duty at the Customs House. The soldier in return hit Garrick in the ear with the butt of his bayonet. If only it would have stopped there. Garrick walked away but came back with a group of around 40angry men yelling insults and screaming threats towards the soldier.
These men were led by Crispus Attucks, a large intimidating sailor, carrying a big stick and yelling to the men following him. James Bailey, a local colonist and no friend to the soldiers, recounted under oath what he heard Attucks yelling to his fellow sailors, “Do not be afraid of them, they dare not fire, kill them! Kill them! Knock them over!”
As Attucks and his men began ascending on the square, a citizen worried about what would ensue, rang the meeting house bell, which normally is rung as a call for fire, but this time it was for a situation that was getting all fired up. Quickly civilians began running to the square. It should be mentioned that even on a good day the soldiers and sailors were not friendly toward one another and often small incidents would break out between them. So it’s not surprising many of the men who came running came because of their negative feelings towards the soldiers and were ready to support, if not join in the confrontation.
As the crowd began growing, Captain Preston arrived with more soldiers, pushing through the crowd to bring peace and order and hopefully disperse the crowd with no casualties. I imagine that could have come across as hostile, fueling an already tense situation. Preston’s hopes of a peaceful ending, with only eight soldiers, outnumbered three to one and violent tension filling the air, was about to come to an end.
James Bailey’s eye-witness account says he saw twenty or thirty sailors and civilians surround the sentry, pelting the British soldiers with chunks of ice the size as a man’s fist, certainly big enough that a hit to the head could be fatal. If they weren’t throwing ice they threw sticks, rocks, and whatever else they could find. Bailey stated that Attucks, “had hardiness enough to fall in upon them (the soldiers) and with one hand took hold of a bayonet, and with the other knocked the man down”.
Witness testimony says that Private Hugh Montgomery was the first to fire a shot. According to Bailey’s testimony, he states he saw a man with a club knock Montgomery down before he ever fired his gun and was hit hard enough that when he fell his gun flew out of his hand. At this point you can see why Montgomery felt his life was in danger, and he shot his gun out of self-defense.
After that first shot, six seconds elapsed before all hell broke loose and a round of shots were fired. As the crowd began to scatter in a panic, more men, including John Adams, came running to assist in bringing this fatal confrontation to an end. When the dust settled, eleven men were lying on the ground, four of them dead, including Crispus Attucks, a fifth man died later from his wounds. .
Captain Preston assembled his men and marched them away in silence. But the citizens wanted revenge and the threat of more violence loomed in the air, so additional British soldiers arrived to reestablish order and avoid further bloodshed. At this point Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson came to the scene and from the second story balcony of the Town House he told the crowd that Preston and his men would be tried for murder.
Just three weeks after the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere published “The Bloody Massacre in King-Street” which was probably the most effective piece of war propaganda in American history, regardless of the fact that it was inaccurate and the picture drawn to illustrate what happened, which you can see here on the memorial, is completely false. Unfortunately, that’s the world of politics.
84 MA-28, Boston, MA 02108, USA 