1770 - The Boston Massacre
Tensions between the American colonists and the British were already running high in the early spring of 1770. Late in the afternoon, on March 5, a crowd of jeering Bostonians slinging snowballs gathered around a small group of British soldiers - eight British soldiers and their captain - guarding the Boston Customs House. The volatile crowd refused to obey orders to disperse and threw oyster shells, chunks of ice, and other objects at the soldiers. The soldiers became enraged after one of them had been hit, and they fired into the crowd, even though they were under orders not to fire. Five colonists were shot and killed.
The first person who was hit when the British soldiers began firing was an African American sailor named Crispus Attucks. Although not much is known about his past, it's likely that Attucks escaped slavery around 1750 and worked on whaling ships for the next 20 years. Of the five civilians who died in the Boston Massacre, Attucks is the only one who became widely known, and he became the first hero of the American Revolution.
Conflicts between the British and the colonists had been on the rise because the British government had been trying to increase control over the colonies and raise taxes at the same time. The event in Boston helped to unite the colonies against Britain. What started as a minor fight became a turning point in the beginnings of the American Revolution. The Boston Massacre helped spark the colonists' desire for American independence, while the dead rioters became martyrs for liberty.
The day following the "Boston Massacre," a loyalist merchant came to Adams's law office and asked that he defend Captain Preston and the soldiers against charges of murder. Although committed to freedom from British tyranny, Adams agreed. He believed that every person accused of a crime should have counsel and a fair trial.
The engraving by Paul Revere (1735-1818) of the massacre was derived from the work of future Loyalist, Henry Pelham (1749-1806). A masterpiece of anti-British propaganda, it inflamed American sentiments. Revere's print "The Bloody Massacre", which depicted British soldiers firing into a crowd of peaceful colonists. Sam Adams and others distributed copies of this print, and publicized the "Boston Massacre" as a symbol of British tyranny."
The day following the "Boston Massacre," a loyalist merchant came to John Adams's law office and asked that he defend Captain Preston and the soldiers against charges of murder. Although committed to freedom from British tyranny, John Adams agreed. He believed that every person accused of a crime should have counsel and a fair trial. To succeed, Adams would have to persuade the jurors that Paul Revere's print was political propaganda, and that an out-of-control mob provoked the soldiers to fire in self-defense. Captain Preston's trial took place in October 1770. Adams and co-counsel Josiah Quincy successfully challenged the prosecution's claim that Preston had ordered his soldiers to fire, and the jury, composed of colonists, acquitted him.
Adams's closing argument, which contemporaries described as "electrifying," argued to the jury that " Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence . . . . [The law] commands that which is good, and punishes evil in all, whether rich, or poor, high, or low. "
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