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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