It is January 4th. Welcome to Episode 4 of History in a Year. Tensions in Boston have been simmering for years, but on a freezing night in March 1770, they finally boil over. We explore the Boston Massacre—not just the bloody event itself, but the propaganda war that followed. We also witness one of the greatest acts of integrity in American history, when John Adams risks his career to defend the British soldiers accused of murder.
STEPHEN: Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH: Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: It is January 4th. Welcome to Episode 4. Yesterday, we talked about the Stamp Act of 1765—the riots, the effigies, and the eventual repeal. The colonists thought they had won. They thought life would go back to normal.
LEAH: But it didn’t. Remember that “Declaratory Act” we mentioned? The one where Parliament said, “We can do whatever we want”? Well, in 1767, they decided to prove it. They passed the “Townshend Acts.”
STEPHEN: Named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was known as “Champagne Charlie” because he liked to make speeches while… enjoying a beverage. He decided to tax imports like glass, lead, paint, paper, and—most famously—tea.
LEAH: Boston immediately resisted. They restarted the boycotts. They harassed the tax collectors. And this time, London didn’t back down. In 1768, they sent four regiments of British troops to occupy Boston.
STEPHEN: Now, imagine this. Boston was a small town of about 16,000 people. Suddenly, 2,000 soldiers arrive. That is one soldier for every eight citizens. It was an occupation.
LEAH: And these weren’t just guys standing on guard duty. They lived in the town. They set up tents on the Boston Common. And because they were poorly paid, they took second jobs in their off-hours, working at the docks or in ropewalks for lower wages than the locals.
STEPHEN: So now you have Bostonians who hate the soldiers for political reasons, and working-class guys who hate them because they are stealing their jobs. Fistfights were happening constantly. It was a powder keg waiting for a spark.
LEAH: That spark finally came on the night of March 5, 1770. It was a cold, snowy night. The ground was covered in about a foot of snow and ice.
STEPHEN: It started simply enough. A lone British sentry, Private Hugh White, was guarding the Custom House on King Street. That’s where the King’s money was stored. A young apprentice wigmaker named Edward Garrick walked by and yelled an insult at a British officer.
LEAH: Private White told the kid to be respectful. They exchanged words. And then, White hit the boy in the head with the butt of his musket.
STEPHEN: The boy screamed. A crowd gathered. They started shouting at the sentry. Church bells began to ring—which usually meant a fire—so more people poured into the street to see what was happening.
LEAH: The crowd grew to maybe 300 or 400 people. They were angry. They started throwing snowballs, chunks of ice, and oyster shells at Private White. They shouted, “Kill him! Kill him!”
STEPHEN: White was terrified. He backed up to the steps of the Custom House, loaded his musket, and called for the guard.
LEAH: Captain Thomas Preston, the officer of the watch, heard the commotion. He took a corporal and six privates, fixed bayonets, and marched them through the crowd to rescue White.
STEPHEN: They formed a semi-circle around the steps, guns leveled, bayonets out. Captain Preston stood in front of them, trying to get the crowd to disperse.
LEAH: But the crowd wasn’t scared. They pressed in. A man named Richard Palmes actually walked up to Captain Preston and hit his arm with a club. Another man, a sailor named Crispus Attucks, grabbed a soldier’s bayonet.
STEPHEN: In the chaos, a soldier named Private Montgomery was knocked down by a club or a piece of ice. As he scrambled back to his feet, angry and scared, he fired his musket.
LEAH: He didn’t wait for an order. He just fired. Then, there was a pause. The crowd gasped. And then, the other soldiers fired a ragged volley.
STEPHEN: When the smoke cleared, five men lay dead or dying in the snow.
LEAH: Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native American descent, was shot twice in the chest. He is considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.
STEPHEN: Samuel Gray, a ropemaker. James Caldwell, a sailor. Samuel Maverick, a 17-year-old apprentice. And Patrick Carr, an Irish immigrant who died two weeks later.
LEAH: The town went berserk. Governor Hutchinson had to rush to the scene and promise that justice would be done just to stop the mob from tearing the soldiers apart. Captain Preston and his men were arrested and charged with murder.
STEPHEN: Now, this is where the story shifts from a “riot” to a “massacre.” Because the patriots, led by Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, realized this was a golden propaganda opportunity.
LEAH: Paul Revere created an engraving—a picture—of the event. You have probably seen it in a history book. It shows a neat line of British soldiers, looking like a firing squad, shooting into a peaceful, well-dressed crowd under a bright blue sky.
STEPHEN: It was fake news before fake news existed! It wasn’t day; it was night. The crowd wasn’t peaceful; they were attacking the soldiers with clubs. Captain Preston wasn’t ordering them to fire; he was standing in front of the guns. But Revere titled it “The Bloody Massacre,” and he sent prints all over the colonies.
LEAH: It worked. It convinced Americans that the British army was just bloodthirsty murderers slaughtering innocent citizens.
STEPHEN: But there was a problem. The soldiers had to be put on trial. And in Boston, in 1770, no lawyer wanted to defend them. If you defended the “Redcoats,” your career was over. You might get your house burned down.
LEAH: Captain Preston begged lawyer after lawyer to help him. They all refused. Finally, he asked a 34-year-old lawyer named John Adams.
STEPHEN: John Adams was a patriot. He hated the British occupation. He was the cousin of Samuel Adams, the leader of the Sons of Liberty. He wanted to run for political office. Defending these men was political suicide.
LEAH: But Adams believed in the law. He believed that in a free country, every man deserves a fair trial and a vigorous defense, no matter how unpopular they are. He later said, “Counsel ought to be the very last thing that an accused person should want in a free country.”
STEPHEN: So, he took the case. And he did an amazing job. He actually got the trial delayed for months to let the tempers cool down.
LEAH: When the trial finally happened, Adams argued self-defense. He brought in witnesses—including the doctor who treated Patrick Carr before he died. Carr had admitted on his deathbed that the soldiers were provoked and that he didn’t blame them.
STEPHEN: Adams famously told the jury: “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.”
LEAH: He argued that the soldiers were being attacked by a mob and feared for their lives. He painted a picture of chaos, not murder.
STEPHEN: And the jury—a Boston jury!—agreed. They acquitted Captain Preston and six of the soldiers. Two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter, not murder. Their punishment was to have their thumbs branded with the letter “M,” and then they were released.
LEAH: It was a triumph for the rule of law. But for John Adams, the cost was real. His legal practice collapsed for a while. People shouted insults at him in the street.
STEPHEN: But in the long run, it made his reputation. It proved to the world that the Americans weren’t just a lawless mob. They were a people who respected justice, even for their enemies.
LEAH: Later in life, Adams called his defense of the soldiers “one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested actions of my whole life, and one of the best pieces of service I ever rendered my country.”
STEPHEN: So, the Boston Massacre had two legacies. First, Paul Revere’s engraving radicalized the colonies and convinced them that British rule was tyranny.
LEAH: And second, John Adams’s defense proved that the American cause was built on higher principles than just anger.
STEPHEN: But the bloodshed on King Street didn’t start the war immediately. Ironically, things actually calmed down for a few years after this. The British withdrew the troops to an island in the harbor to keep the peace. Parliament repealed most of the Townshend taxes—except for one.
LEAH: The tax on tea. They kept that one just to prove they could.
STEPHEN: And that single tax, on that single beverage, is going to lead us to the next explosion.
LEAH: Join us tomorrow for Episode 5. The tea is brewing in Boston Harbor. We are going to put on some disguises, head to Griffin’s Wharf, and throw the most famous protest party in history.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: And this… is our story.