Skip to content
ShadowPoint

Academy1770 to 1775: From Boston to the Continental Army

The Boston Massacre and the Rule of Law

This lesson takes 12 minutes.

Objectives

  • Date the firing on King Street: 5 March 1770
  • State that five people were killed, Crispus Attucks among them
  • Separate Preston's acquittal in October 1770 from the soldiers' verdicts
  • Name John Adams and Josiah Quincy Jr. as counsel for the defense

Lesson

On 5 March 1770, on King Street in Boston, British soldiers fired into a crowd. Five people were killed. Crispus Attucks was among them. The National Park Service records that seven soldiers fired, that five were killed, and that six more were wounded. Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Attucks were buried together. A large funeral followed.

Boston wanted a fast conviction. Governor Thomas Hutchinson had Captain Thomas Preston and the soldiers arrested, and then delayed the trials. Preston's trial began on 24 October 1770. On 30 October 1770 the jury found him not guilty. The soldiers were tried next, in the case known as Rex v. Wemms. That trial began on 27 November 1770 and ran nine days, into December. Six soldiers were acquitted. Two, Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy, were convicted of manslaughter, not murder. They claimed benefit of clergy. The court branded their thumbs instead of hanging them.

Robert Auchmuty, John Adams, and Josiah Quincy Jr. defended Preston. Adams and Quincy stayed for the soldiers, and Adams led that defense. He told the jury that facts are stubborn things, and that the law, not the anger of the town, decided whether a killing was murder or manslaughter.

The lesson is the record of those verdicts. One night produced different verdicts for different men.

Sources

Commonly Confused Facts

  • The Boston Massacre was 5 March 1770. The Tea Party was 16 December 1773. They were not the same night.
  • Five people were killed on 5 March 1770. Crispus Attucks was one of them, not the only one.
  • Captain Preston was acquitted on 30 October 1770. In the soldiers' trial, six were acquitted and two were convicted of manslaughter, not murder.
  • The repeal assented to on 12 April 1770 kept the tea duty. The Tea Act of 10 May 1773 did not create that duty. The argument was consent, not the price.
  • The battle of 17 June 1775 is called Bunker Hill. The redoubt stood on Breed's Hill.
  • Who fired first on Lexington Green on 19 April 1775 is unknown. The day totals are not the same as the eight militia killed on the green.
  • 14 June 1775, the resolve to raise ten companies of riflemen, is the date the Army marks as its birthday. Washington was chosen on 15 June, accepted on 16 June, and was commissioned on 19 June.
  • Patrick Henry spoke on 23 March 1775. The familiar wording was reconstructed in 1817. It is not a transcript from that day.
  • The Declaration on Taking Up Arms is 6 July 1775. The Olive Branch Petition was entered on 8 July 1775. They belong to the same week.
  • The King's proclamation of rebellion is 23 August 1775, after Bunker Hill, not before Lexington.

Check