Cold Open

It’s the evening of March 5th, 1770 in the city of Boston, in the British colony of Massachusetts.

An angry crowd has gathered outside the Customs House. 52-year-old Captain Thomas Preston pushes his way through the mob, with a small squad of British soldiers following behind. But the sight of their guns and bayonets does nothing to calm the locals, who only jeer more loudly and start flinging snowballs at Captain Preston and his men.

Tensions between British troops and Boston’s locals have been simmering for months. The American colonists want more freedom to rule themselves, but their rulers in London want to maintain direct control. An hour ago, Captain Preston heard rumors of unrest in this part of the city, and he’s been ordered to defuse the situation before it gets out of hand. Captain Preston reaches the front of the crowd. A single sentry stands in front of the Customs House entrance. Captain Preston hurries over to him to find out what’s going on. The young guard visibly sighs with relief. He reports that the crowd is demanding that he hand over a British officer who supposedly owes money to a local tradesman. The terrified officer is sheltering inside the Customs House, afraid for his life.

Captain Preston turns and takes in the size of the crowd properly for the first time. He was only expecting a few hot-headed radicals, but instead, there are at least fifty boys and men, many of them carrying clubs, their faces twisted in anger. Plus, the sight of the uniformed British soldiers has only added fuel to the fire. The number of Bostonians in the street is growing rapidly, and it’s not just snowballs that fly through the air now…

The crowd begins throwing rocks at Captain Preston and his men. And when one colonist gets a little too close, one of Captain Preston’s soldiers jabs out with his bayonet.

Before Preston can intervene, a brawl breaks out. The captain is pushed and shoved by the locals… until gunfire rings out and the crowd falls back in panic. Captain Preston orders his men to cease fire, but it’s too late. Several bodies lie on the snow-covered street, as the colonists back away in horror and anger. 

Eleven civilians are shot during the fight at Boston’s Customs House, and five of the colonists will die of their wounds. It’s a skirmish that will have far-reaching consequences. Few Bostonians were advocates for independence from Britain before the soldiers opened fire. But now, in the blood-stained snow of the city, seeds of the American Revolution will be planted on March 5th, 1770.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is March 5th, 1770: The Boston Massacre.

Act One: The Bloody Massacre

It’s late afternoon on October 2nd, 1768 in Boston Harbor, eighteen months before the confrontation at the Customs House.

Captain Thomas Preston stands on the deck of a British warship, watching as the city gets closer and closer. Preston is one of more than 1,000 soldiers who have been quickly reassigned from Ireland to the American colonies, where a military occupation of Boston is about to begin.

Friction between Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in North America has been building for months. A year ago, the British Parliament passed new legislation imposing additional taxes on all kinds of goods imported into the colonies, from expensive materials like china and glass, to everyday staples like paper and tea. And many American colonists felt like the British government was taking advantage of them. They had no representation in Parliament but still had to pay taxes, levies and fees. It was a lousy deal, and the colonists were tired of it.

Sensing this mounting discontent, the British king, George III, decided he had to act. But rather than make any of the legislative changes that the colonists were asking for, he instead responded with a show of force. Dispatching a fleet of ships and 1,000 soldiers to Boston, he gave orders to keep the peace and stamp out any unrest. Today, Captain Preston’s part of the taskforce is arriving—and he isn’t expecting a warm welcome.

Captain Preston descends the gangplank and steps onto North America for the first time. He gathers his troops and marches them out of the harbor, past the grim faces of the Bostonians who’ve gathered to watch the ships come in.

Despite this difficult start, for almost two years after his arrival, Captain Preston’s soldiers live alongside the citizens of Boston in peace. Many of them form friendships with their neighbors, and some of the single soldiers even marry local women. As an experienced and respected officer, Captain Preston soon garners a reputation as a steady pair of hands who’s trusted by the Bostonians.

But despite the best efforts of men like Preston, resentment grows at the presence of British troops in the city. Some Bostonians are annoyed to find their local watering holes flooded with British officers, while others resent the military tents that take over Boston Common. Most of all, the people of Boston loathe the feeling of being under constant surveillance. They don't like being watched or mistrusted.

On March 5th, 1770, those tensions explode into violence thanks to a simple misunderstanding. A wigmaker’s apprentice named Edward Garrick wrongfully accuses a British officer of not paying his bill. The disagreement soon escalates, with more and more townspeople gathering to take Garrick’s side. When the officer is pushed and shoved by the crowd, a sentry guarding the nearby Customs House intervenes to defend the British officer and ushers him through the door to safety.

But the sentry soon finds himself facing down an increasingly angry mob. As the crowd yells insults and threats, the sentry realizes just how outnumbered he is, and sends a messenger to ask for urgent backup. The sentry is relieved when he sees Captain Preston arrive—just the kind of man you want around in a crisis. But even the experienced Captain Preston is alarmed by the fractious crowd of Bostonians, now wielding clubs and bludgeons.

And then, over the next few minutes, the disturbance takes a fatal turn. As the rioters taunt the soldiers, daring them to fire and pelting them with snowballs, one of the British soldiers loses his nerve and fires his gun. In the chaos that follows, the other soldiers think that Preston has given the order to shoot, and fire their weapons as well directly into the crowd. 

Captain Preston screams a cease fire and tries to regain control over his men, but his face is grim. He knows this is a disaster. And as the dust settles, and blood seeps into the snow, the colonists try to save the men who were shot, but three are already dead: rope maker Samuel Gray, mariner James Caldwell, and Crispus Attucks, a Black sailor who escaped slavery twenty years earlier. Samuel Maverick, a 17-year-old apprentice will die the next day.

The fifth and final victim of the Boston Massacre, as this confrontation becomes known, will die two weeks later. But by then, the fallout from the incident will have already inflamed anti-British sentiment in the colony. And that rebellious feeling will only grow when Captain Preston and his men go on trial for murder.

Act Two: The Trials

It’s October 24th, 1770 in Boston, seven months after the Massacre.

45-year-old lawyer John Adams walks through the marketplace near the waterfront, where merchants and sellers are busy setting out their wares. Stalls overflow with merchandise in the hope of a good day’s business. Locals are expecting the nearby Faneuil Hall to be packed today and bring in plenty of customers. That’s because the hall will be host to the much-anticipated trial of Captain Thomas Preston—and John Adams is here to play a major part in the legal arguments.

Within hours of the Boston Massacre, a colonial court issued a warrant for the arrest of Captain Preston and the soldiers under his command. The British soldiers turned themselves in to the sheriff, and not long after, they were all charged with murder. While the wheels of justice began to turn, word of what had happened spread rapidly through the colony of Massachusetts. Almost overnight, the previously well-liked Captain Preston became public enemy number one. Stories circulated that Preston had deliberately given the order to fire, and that he and his soldiers had committed mass murder.

The perception of Preston as a ruthless killer was then only strengthened by sensational press coverage in Boston. An illustration by engraver Henry Pelham depicted the British soldiers standing in formation before the crowd, deploying their weapons in unison like a firing squad. Pelham’s engraving was widely reproduced in pamphlets by Paul Revere, a leader in the anti-British organization the Sons of Liberty. In Revere’s pamphlets, the illustration was accompanied by a caption which described the soldiers as “fierce Barbarians grinning over their Prey.” Thanks to this propaganda, most Bostonians quickly made up their minds about Captain Preston’s guilt, but today, it’s John Adam’s responsibility to defend Preston in court.

As one of Boston’s most renowned lawyers, Adams takes his responsibility seriously—even though he’s an unlikely choice as Preston’s defense attorney. Adams is a leading voice in colonial politics and has argued in the past for more American representation in the British Parliament. But Adams’s primary loyalty is to the law. He believes deeply in justice for all, and that every man has the right to a fair trial. And given the emotional fallout of the Boston Massacre, it’s clear to him that Preston and his fellow soldiers are unlikely to get anything that resembles fair.

After the court in Faneuil Hall is called to order, Captain Preston is summoned to the dock. Numerous eyewitnesses then testify about what happened on the night in question. But as they each tell their stories, Adams picks out the inconsistencies in their conflicting accounts. It soon becomes clear that the gunfire occurred amidst a chaotic situation. Under questioning, nobody is able to say with any certainty that they heard Preston shout an order to fire. The jury is convinced by Adams’ argument, and Preston is acquitted.

The following month, it’s the turn of Preston’s soldiers to face trial. Adams again is arguing for the defense. But he faces a tougher task to get these men cleared—after all, the jury knows that some of them fired the fatal shots. So in an attempt to absolve them of blame, Adams argues that the soldiers acted in self-defense. He claims that they had a justifiable fear for their lives since they were outnumbered by an angry crowd. Adams causes consternation among his fellow Bostonians when he describes the mob as a “motley rabble,” and blames Black sailor and former slave Crispus Attucks as the one who grabbed the British rifle and kickstarted violence.

In the end, Adams appeals to the jury to set aside any partisan anti-British views and look only at the hard evidence. And thanks to his persuasive arguments, all but two of the soldiers are acquitted, and even the two men found guilty receive a lesser conviction of manslaughter. As punishment, they are each branded on the thumb with the letter “M”. And brutal and painful though the branding is, it’s a lenient sentence. None of the British soldiers will face the death penalty for the killing any of the five colonists.

Captain Preston and his men get off lightly, but the damage has been done to Britain’s authority in North America. The real outcome of the trial is more anger among the colonists. Thanks to the Boston Massacre, the independence movement will grow from a fringe, extreme viewpoint to a mainstream opinion, and, one day, the five victims of the Boston Massacre will come to be known as the first casualties of the American Revolution.

Act Three: The Midnight Ride

It’s the night of April 18th, 1775 on the outskirts of Boston, five years after the Boston Massacre.

40-year-old Paul Revere spurs his horse into a gallop, heading west on the road toward Lexington on the most important mission of his life—British troops are on the march, and Paul has to warn a garrison of American militia before it’s too late.

In the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, the anti-British resistance movement rapidly gathered momentum. Tension between the colonists and their London-based governors reached a head in 1773, when a Sons of Liberty protest destroyed a shipment of tea in the Boston Harbor. Their defiance against British taxation only escalated the dispute into a full-blown crisis. Massachusetts’s colonial government was suspended by London, but the Sons of Liberty formed an alternative, independent assembly, and summoned volunteer militias to defend it.

Knowing that Britain would surely respond with a show of force, the Massachusetts colonists established a system of signals to warn of any impending British approach by land or sea. And earlier tonight, Revere spotted one of those signals—a single lantern in the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church. So as British soldiers gather on Boston Common, Revere is riding to Lexington to warn the local militia what’s coming.

Riding through the night, Revere's warning gives the militia time to prepare. The next morning, British troops arrive in Lexington and the neighboring town of Concord, where the colonists’ military stores are held. The British plan was to catch the colonists by surprise, but instead, they find hundreds of armed volunteers waiting for them. The two sides exchange gunfire, but the British are so vastly outnumbered that they’re forced to retreat back to Boston.

These Battles of Lexington and Concord mark the beginning of the American War of Independence. But the revolution began in spirit five years earlier, when British soldiers fired on and killed five colonists amid the chaos of the Boston Massacre on March 5th, 1770.

Outro

Next on History Daily. March 6th, 1857. In the landmark Dred Scott case, the US Supreme Court rules that African Americans are not entitled to citizenship.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammed Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Emma Dibdin.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.