To complete the story, the British soldiers were defended by none other than
John Adams and, with the exception of two, were acquitted. The jury
convicted two of the soldiers of manslaughter, not murder, and they were
sentenced to a branding on their thumbs, no jail time.
Source for this info is David McCullough's JOHN ADAMS, pages 67 and 68 in my
edition.
Harris Kern
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kiracofe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2008 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: Understanding Historic Concepts
The most famous image of the Boston Massacre shows the British troops firing
on an unarmed crowd of mostly well-dressed folks -- including women as well
as men, but this was a carefully concocted piece of propaganda. The truth
of the incident was that a group of British soldiers were being harassed by
some young boys -- apprentices -- with lots of catcalling and chunks of snow
and ice. When the soldiers finally had enough of it they attempted to push
the boys away, but as they were doing so, a group of longshoremen arrived on
the scene. Since the longshoremen outnumbered the soldiers and since they
were all armed with the longshoreman's common work tool: a six foot long oak
staff tipped with an iron prybar, one could well imagine the soldiers felt
very threatened. I think a blunt object like that could knock someone's
head clean off. It was in the rising tensions, and more catcalling and
menacing, that some voice called out "fire" and the soldiers did so.
David Kiracofe
David Kiracofe
History
Tidewater Community College
Chesapeake Campus
1428 Cedar Road
Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
757-822-5136
>>> Anne Pemberton <[log in to unmask]> 11/12/08 6:55 PM >>>
And your evidence that the Boston mob was unarmed is?????
> How about calling it the "Boston Misunderstanding Causing Unarmed
> Civilians
> to be Killed by Armed British Soldiers."
>
>
>
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