The Boston Massacre | Road to the Revolution

Who was involved in the Boston Massacre? What events led to that moment in American history? Why was the Boston Massacre a defining moment in the road to the American Revolutionary War? All of these questions and more are answered in this overview of the Boston Massacre.

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Music (all copyright free in YouTube Audio Library):
Final Boss - Myuu
The Battle of 1066 - Patrick Patrikios
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[anvenua]

Ayo how she talking without a mouth?-🤠

[cmlcorp]

Love what you're doing, please keep them coming

[ToLive_isChrist]

bro I love the dramatic editing, it kept me very intrigued. Amazing video (and I won't fail my homework now)

[kentondickerson]

I think they were found not guilty by reason of self defense.

[StephenLuke]

RIP
To the five American colonists who were murdered by the 29th Regiment in the Boston Massacre

[FreeThePorgs]

Its more self defense, British soldiers doing there duty guarding the customs house when a mob of angry people started to harass and threaten them. The mob grew bigger and bigger then the soldiers got backup and the redcoats then opened fire when attacked. While the British attacked 1st yes and it kicked off everything off it would be self defense with perhaps probation for the 1st musket strike redcoat. What would you do if you were standing there guarding a building and a mob of angry people came up to you and started to attack you???? You would open fire with your gun!!!! Then claim self defense.

[Grizzlytactics]

Even back then. The black dude HAS to die first huh? Fml lol

[dklimov]

Great video, but the music is bit too loud, making it somewhat hard to her the narration.

[ogloko]

It’s not townSHend with a SH sound. It’s Townshend with a Send sound, H is silent. Sorry I pointed that out. It bothered me.

[merlink]

Firstly on the subject of "taxation without representation"; this was actually no different from the majority of people in Britain at the time - only landowners were permitted to vote, everybody else - the majority - could not vote but were expected to pay their taxes or face harsh punishment.

Secondly, the taxes imposed on the American colonists were primarily used to fund the defence of the colonies. Not an unreasonable expectation.

Thirdly, the taxes the colonists were expected to pay were, in most cases, much lower than the taxes paid in Britain.

Now to the 'massacre'. Private Hugh White, standing guard outside the Boston Custom House repremanded 13 year old Edward Garrick for being disrespectful to a British Officer. Not unreasonable when repect for elders was expected of young people of the time. Garrick responded by being abusive and jabbing Private White with his finger repeatedly. This would be the equivalent of doing the same to a modern day police officer and in response White knocked him down with his rifle butt.

A large group of colonists started to form led by the former slave Crispus Attucks and they began throwing rocks and other objects at the severely outnumbered sentry whilst goading him to open fire.

Captain Thomas Preston and six men arrived to support Private White who by this time was facing 300-400 angry rioters.

The crowd continued to pelt the soldiers with rocks. The soldiers did not load their muskets - they arrived with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed. Despite continual goading from the crowd daring the soldiers to open fire they did not do so. One of the crowd asked if the weapons were loaded and Preston replied in the affirmative but stated the soldiers would not fire unless ordered to do so.

After some time a missile struck one of the soldiers and knocked him down. His musket discharged - it is not entirely clear if he intende to fire or if it went off as a result of his being knocked down but, as is often the way the result was that the other soldiers opened fire. Without orders to do so.

Eleven colonists were hit with three dying instantly. One died the next day and another two weeks later. One man, Christopher Monk received serious wounds which may have contributed to his death a decade later.

The rioting crowd dispersed and the soldiers were arrested the next day.

Immediately colonists began a propaganda war publishing pamphlets that demonized the soldiers, most famously the engraving by Paul Revere (who actually plagiarized the engraving from Henry Pelham).

Future President John Adams presided over the trial describing the colonist crowd as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes, and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish Jack Tarrs... ...why we should scruple to call such a set of people a mob, I can't conceive, unless the name is too respectable for them. The sun is not about to stand still or go out, nor the rivers to dry up because there was a mob in Boston on the 5th of March that attacked a party of soldiers." He argued that the soldiers had the legal right to fight back against the mob and so were innocent. If they were provoked but not endangered, he argued, they were at most guilty of manslaughter.

The jury agreed with Adams and acquitted six of the soldiers and found two guilty of manslaughter. The sentence of having their hands branded seems to play out the belief that even with the manslaughter verdict, the provocation they recieved from the crowd was mitigation enough to avoid a death sentence.

Before he died, one of the colonists, Patrick Carr an Irishman, defended the actions of the soldiers saying that he had "frequently seen mobs, and soldiers called upon to quell them..." and that he had "seen soldiers often fire on the people in Ireland, but had never seen them [the soldiers] bear half so much [provocation] before they fired."

The evidence shows that the "Boston Massacre" was merely self defence carried out by eight fearful soldiers who were severely outnumbered by a mob of 400 violent colonists - a view accepted by a colonial court of law overseen by a Patriot judge who would become the first US Vice President and second President and the patience under extreme duress shown by the soldiers was acknowledged by at least one of the mob on his death bed.

Can the deaths of five men and the wounding of six others from a group of 400 at the hands of eight soldiers be termed a massacre? I don't think so.

Massacres tend to be carried out by a superior force on another group of lesser number. There is no argument that can be made for an outnumbered force facing hostility and violence at the hands of far superior numbers being guilty of a "massacre".

If the soldiers had not opened fire the result would likely have been their deaths at the hands of the mob. And that WOULD have been a massacre.

[bdeggs]

Hey I am watching this because my teacher told me to watch this

[mox]

Pls increase music volume, almost understood what was said

[davidbanner]

Takes me back to 1982, the first time i heard this lesson as a little 5th grader. The textbook had that same picture of the soldiers firing on the crowd😅

[cassien]

2:45 the Boston Massacre (st. Valentines day massacre)

[CollinJones-ez]

The colonist play zero build I bet plus they could just shokwave out of there.

[samuelb-]

The British soldiers were just doing their job, none of them should have been charged, and the 'massacre' name needs to go.

[Truetruthteller]

This quick review of American history was inaccurate and didn’t mention the significance of the American individual who speared their lives in detail. This lacks tones of information and important facts.

[daystar]

Those Bostonians were just checking out the Customs House. Couldn't be a real revolution, they didn't even have guns! #sarcasm

[layla-cx]

The only reason I watched this cause of my teacher

[Moneylongerr]

hold on my teacher told us that a captain told the soldiers dont shoot but they thought the captian said shoot who do i trust 2:36