Michael Ferrick
12/13/12
Prof. Steffek
Hist 1301
The Boston Massacre in the eyes of the soldiers of the 29th Regiment What really happened during the Boston Massacre is still a mystery, as many people had a different view about what they saw. The Boston Massacre took place in Boston Massachusetts, on March 5th, 1770, by the French and Indian War. More specifically it happened on the corner of Devonshire St. and State St., in front of Boston’s customs house between the soldiers of the 29th regiment and the citizens of Boston. Boston was a peaceful town until the government started passing tax acts such as the Stamp act and others. The Stamp act was later repealed but it’s effects on the people didn’t completely wear off, as some was still aggravated. There were other taxes that were also passed, as well as a board of commissioners; who was in charge of administering the local government. The Board of Commissioners was supposed to bring relief and keep the peace of Boston’s commerce. Instead, it did the opposite and brought up more trouble than it should have. First off, their residence was supposed to be at a place that was convenient for the town, but instead they didn’t take consideration of the citizens, placing it at the middle of the town. The Board of Commissioners was actually detrimental to the political interests of the people of Boston. Many of the peoples votes were not being counted for and some were criticized about what they voted for. In the case of Captain Timothy Folgier, he voted against what the commissioners wanted him to, which in turn got him fired. More and more people began to take notice of all the corruption within the Board of Commissioners, and started to treat their government and commissioners with neglect. Gov. Bernard took noticed at started to feel resentment. To express this, he felt like the best route to take was to lead an invasion from sea and land, treating the people of Boston like rebels. Regiments were ordered to take control over war ships that surrounded Boston. Two other regiments from Ireland also moved to Massachusetts, both at Boston as well as Castle Island. Many argued that they went against the Magna Carta (which was their version of the Bill of Rights) by keeping an army at times of peace and by quartering the troops within peoples houses. Gov. Bernard gave up the state house to the troops without talking to the council first and getting permission to do so. He used many different tactics to do this except for forced entry, and used the house as a barracks. The troops took possession of the house’s chambers, where the state representatives and courts would normally hold their meetings. This caused much annoying to merchants as well, as they used to use the first floor for exchange. The merchants had a right to be their, as the state house was the property of the town, but that right was stripped from them through force. The general court ruled in favor of the merchants, telling Gen. Bernard to remove the troops, but they didn’t budge. The Sentinels that were posted around the house were also causing a lot of fuss and uneasiness to Boston’s inhabitants. No one really knew what went on and what sparked the massacre that evening because everyone had a different story. But most stories came down to this. The soldiers of the 29th regiment as well as the people of Boston had already been aggravated by the increasingly violent fights that been happening between them. This made the soldiers was ready for whatever, with muskets to their sides. What weathered the event of the massacre was a tussle between one of the rope makers in Mr. Grays rope shop and a soldier. In which a soldier challenged the rope makers to a boxing match. One of the rope makers accepted the challenge and ended up winning the match. The soldier retreated to the barracks and came back with more soldiers, and once again, the rope maker won again. This happened several times until a large group of soldiers formed and was driven off. Mr. Gray didn’t like this and prevented it from happening again. This left a strong impression on the soldiers, making them want to take revenge. Wanting to create some sort of outrage within the town, they carried out that desire almost right after that incident. Samuel Drowne stated that at around 9pm on the 5th of march, he saw a group of around 14-15 armed soldiers of the 29th regiment abusing some people and violently assaulting them. The soldiers heading to King St. where Samuel saw a group of about a dozen people saw these soldiers being armed and went off on them, with some of the people being the first ones assaulted. Most of the dozen people fled. This is was just an introduction of what happened soon afterwards. The soldiers stopped and cried out “Where are the boogers?! Where are the cowards?!”. Their outrages threats, gestures, and brandishing of their weapons made someone ring the bell of the meeting house up King st., in which the bell rang fast, which meant the message of fire. This made some inhabitants come out. One of the sentrys who close, was mistakened by the party by a group of boys as part of the party of outraged soldiers. These boys started arguing with the sentry and the sentry started pressing them with his bayonet, which in return the boys threw snowballs at him, making him run to and knock on the door of the custom house. Two soldiers stayed on guard up the street for main-guard, charging the crowd with their bayonets, which stirred up some disturbance. Capt. Preston was on main duty with seven or eight other soldiers at the time. Mr. Knox, who was talking to Capt. Preston at the time stated that the only thing that provoked the soldiers to start pressing them with their bayonets were the snowballs thrown at them. This in turn stirred up more agitation in Capt. Preston and his soldiers, in which Preston gave the order fire, and repeated the order. Which one soldier fired at the first order and was soon followed by 10-12 other guns firing with the repeated order. Eleven persons were killed and wounded at the massacre. There were many sources in our reading that stated something of this sort, but this seemed to be the most convincing and had the most information.

Brief note: On the powerpoint I kind of mixed up the ending, but this essay showed what the source actually stated. Sorry for the confusion.
Source Link: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/revolution/account2.cfm
Original Narrative: http://www.masshist.org/revolution/image-viewer.php?item_id=337&img_step=1&tpc=&pid=2&mode=transcript&tpc=&pid=2#page1

What do you think about this source though? It seems really convincing and it seems like this is truly what happened in the Boston massacre.