It seems as if every other year since fifth grade we have been taught over and over again about the atrocious and horrific Boston Massacre — when the ruthless Brits picked up their rifles and fired an endless torrent of bullets against countless innocent colonists. However, if you look at the details of the situation closer, as we have been in class with an informative documentary, we see information that rebuffs what many of us have been taught for years.
The actual incident happened on March 5, 1770 when a group of colonists challenged British soldiers carrying firearms. As tensions rose and the situation started to get increasingly volatile, the soldiers fired at the unarmed citizens, resulting in only five deaths. So how did this incident become such a staple of American history?
When Samuel Adams asked Paul Revere, a local silversmith, to make an engraving depicting the Boston Massacre, he overdramatized the realities of the situation. Neither Adams nor Revere witnessed the attack, which resulted in major inaccuracies. This piece of art was distributed throughout the colonies, and the graphic depiction of evil Brits murdering a crowd of helpless colonists sparked anger. Essentially, the Boston Massacre became a massive piece of propaganda in the path toward independence.
Although these five lives should not have been taken, in my opinion five deaths aren’t enough to be labeled a massacre. Massacre is defined as “the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings or animals, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder,” and I wouldn’t consider five deaths to be “a large number of human beings.” What other inaccurate recollections or overdramatized events are in American history?
-Adrienne Mitchel
The Boston "Massacre" is a clear example of the colonists (and especially the leaders, such as Adams and Revere) creating propaganda in order to motivate the American people. For this reason, I agree that the event should not be considered a massacre, but at the same time I would consider it to be much more than a misunderstanding. On a large scale, 5 lives may not seem like too many, but that does not mean that we can disvalue them.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, America was already provoked and angered at the British. It seems to me that they made this "massacre" into a dramatic depiction of what Britain supposedly does to the Colonists. Spreading dramatic descriptions of something that was not actually a horrible bloody event, likely caused the tensions between the two sides to become even worse. Part of the reason why the American Revolution happened was because of over-dramatized events like this one. Thank you for you insight Adrienne.
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