Who created an engraving of the boston massacre to increase support for the patriot cause?
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The Declaration of IndependenceWhen in the course of human events . . . The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. "The Bloody Massacre" engraving by Paul Revere. Note that this is not an accurate depiction of the event. The presence of British troops in the city of Boston was increasingly unwelcome. The riot began when about 50 citizens attacked a British sentinel. A British officer, Captain Thomas Preston, called in additional soldiers, and these too were attacked, so the soldiers fired into the mob, killing 3 on the spot (a black sailor named Crispus Attucks, ropemaker Samuel Gray, and a mariner named James Caldwell), and wounding 8 others, two of whom died later (Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr). A town meeting was called demanding the removal of the British and the trial of Captain Preston and his men for murder. At the trial, John Adams and Josiah Quincy II defended the British, leading to their acquittal and release. Samuel Quincy and Robert Treat Paine were the attorneys for the prosecution. Later, two of the British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. The Boston Massacre was a signal event leading to the Revolutionary War. It led directly to the Royal Governor evacuating the occupying army from the town of Boston. It would soon bring the revolution to armed rebellion throughout the colonies. Note that the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768 was not met by open resistance. Written by: Bill of Rights InstituteBy the end of this section, you will:
In late 1767, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which taxed the colonists on purchases of British lead, glass, paint, paper, and tea. The British also headquartered customs officials in Boston to collect the new round of taxes and enforce trade regulations more stringently. The colonists could buy only British goods, and now those goods were hit with tariffs that meant there was no limit to Parliament’s taxing power, because the colonists were forbidden to manufacture many of their own goods. Colonial reaction was swift. John Dickinson wrote in Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania that if Parliament succeeded in “taking money out of our pockets without our consent . . . our boasted liberty is but . . . a sound and nothing else.” Massachusetts sent other colonies a circular letter drafted by Samuel Adams denouncing the taxes. In Williamsburg, George Mason and George Washington followed the example of other colonies by creating an agreement not to import any British goods. Throughout the colonies, women held spinning bees, gatherings in their homes where they made homespun clothing as a symbol of republican simplicity to replace imported luxuries. Bostonians protested the taxes in the streets, assembled at town meetings, and threatened customs officials, leading Royal Governor Francis Bernard to dissolve the assembly. The British also dispatched four thousand redcoats as a show of force to pacify the city. Many colonists considered the peacetime presence of this standing army, which their legislatures did not invite, a grave threat to their liberties and a gross violation of the 1689 English Bill of Rights. Its presence strained an already tense atmosphere. John Adams, cousin of Samuel Adams, wrote later that the troops’ “very appearance in Boston was a strong proof to me, that the determination in Great Britain to subjugate us was too deep and inveterate ever to be altered by us.” Fights erupted in taverns and streets as mobs of townspeople wielded insults, clubs, swords, and shovels against redcoats armed with bayonets. On the morning of February 22, 1770, a crowd of hundreds threatened a merchant, Theophilus Lillie, who had violated the boycott of British goods. After Lillie’s neighbor, Ebenezer Richardson, rushed to his aid, the throng chased Richardson, who retreated inside his own house. The crowd lobbed taunts and rotten food. As his windows shattered, Richardson fired into the crowd, killing an eleven-year-old boy. The mob seized Richardson, beat him senseless, and nearly hanged him. Samuel Adams used the incident to portray the dead boy as a martyr to British tyranny and organized a funeral procession attended by thousands. A few days later, near the customs house, a group of hostile boys insulted a young sentry who responded by smashing the butt of his musket into a boy’s head. The church bells tolled, bringing hundreds of citizens into the streets to pelt the sentry with snowballs, rocks, and ice. Captain Thomas Preston marched a few men out to relieve the sentry, forming a line and ordering the crowd to disperse. In the skirmishes that followed, one soldier was knocked down by a club; he rose and discharged his musket. The rest of the soldiers fired a volley that struck eleven Bostonians, instantly killing three and mortally wounding two more. Preston and his men were jailed that night, and the rest of the troops relocated to a fort in Boston harbor, narrowly averting a full-scale battle. Patriot leaders seized on the “massacre” for a public relations victory. The British government – responsible for protecting its subjects’ rights to life, liberty, and property – in the years since the French and Indian War had seemed to seize colonists’ property and curtail their liberty; now its soldiers had taken their lives. Ten thousand mourners attended the funeral procession staged by Samuel Adams. Silversmith Paul Revere contributed an engraving showing bloodthirsty soldiers firing at innocent civilians; it was mostly propaganda but served to galvanize many colonists’ feelings about British oppression. Why would Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre rouse colonists toward the Patriot cause? John Adams, then a practicing lawyer, defended the British soldiers in court, an unpopular decision that nevertheless defined his stand for justice and the rule of law. Preston was judged not to have given an order to fire and was acquitted. Most of the soldiers were also acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Adams had proved that in the colonies, the law was supreme. He staked his public reputation and Patriot credentials on the principle that the traditional rights of Englishmen were deserved by all, even hated British soldiers who had slain five colonists. His courageous act contributed to a relative calm that lasted a few years. Meanwhile, Parliament revoked the hated Townshend Acts, except, fatefully, the tax on tea. Review Questions1. Which of the following methods was not used by colonists to protest the Acts passed by Parliament after the French and Indian War?
2. The Boston Massacre refers to
3. Which of the following provides an example of colonists participating in an economic protest against the Townsend Acts?
4. What was the effect of the Boston Massacre engraving and funeral procession in other colonies?
5. What was John Adams’ intention when he defended the British redcoats involved in the Boston Massacre?
6. Which of the following was Britain’s direct response to the Boston Massacre?
7. Which of the following best contextualizes the Boston Massacre?
Free Response Questions
AP Practice Questions
English Bill of Rights, 1689 Refer to the excerpt provided.1. The principle expressed in the English Bill of Rights that contributed most to the tensions in Boston was
2. Taken as a whole, the English Bill of Rights most clearly demonstrates the British belief in the principle of
Captain Prescott, Account of the Boston Massacre, 1770 Refer to the excerpt provided.3. The excerpt gives historians insight into the
4. An important consequence of the account described in the excerpt was that the
5. Which of the following best describes a reaction to the event described in the excerpt?
Primary Sources“Biography of John Adams. The Boston Massacre.” American History. University of Groningen. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/john-adams/the-boston-massacre.php Chappel, Alonzo. Boston Massacre. Printed 1878 The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-e8e9-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770. https://gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/road-revolution/resources/paul-revere%E2%80%99s-engraving-boston-massacre-1770 Suggested ResourcesArcher, Richard. As If an Enemy’s Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Zobel, Hiller B. The Boston Massacre. New York: Norton, 1970. Who is the silversmith that engraved the bloody massacre?48. Paul Revere's inflammatory engraving "The Bloody Massacre" was one of the most evocative propaganda pieces printed during the American Revolution. Revere lived in Boston and made his living as a silversmith, engraver and metalworker.
Who created the biased engraving of the Boston Massacre and later warned the Patriots that the British were on their way to Lexington in 1775?On March 5, 1770, these tensions resulted in the deaths of five unarmed Boston civilians on King Street. This tragedy later became known as the Boston Massacre. Henry Pelham produced an engraving that was later copied and sensationalized by Paul Revere entitled the Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street.
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