REVS Q - Boston massacre

key triggers to boston massacre - long term

Long-Term Causes:

• Socio-economic tensions arose from the presence of “2,000 British soldiers”.

• Troops “began to take jobs”, worsening unemployment.

• infuriated colonist as forced colonists to pay £300,000 annually for the army’s maintain Quartering Act (1765).

• 4,000 soldiers among 15,000 Bostonians competed for work, moonlighting and worsening economic strain.

• Adams' Journal of Events (1768) exposed atrocities by British troops, fueling anti-British sentiment.

• Economic hardship and biased colonial propaganda escalated frustration, contributing to the Massacre.

key triggers to boston massacre - short term

Short-Term Causes:

• “numbers and distress daily increasing”

• Colonists believed economic restrictions violated Locke’s (1690) natural rights, particularly property & economic freedom.

• Rising resentment led to physical confrontation, culminating in the Boston Massacre (1770).

compare on contrast viewpoints: AMERICAN POV - BRITISH POV - MORE CENTERAL

• British 'would stick at' (Source 2), further emphasized by the aggression:

• Colonists believed their natural rights (Locke, 1690) were violated by British legislative tyranny.

• British revenue-raising acts like the Townshend Acts (1767) and Quartering Act (1765) angered colonists.

• Radical leaders like Sam Adams used propaganda to highlight the presence of 2,000 British troops in Boston, framing them as oppressive.

• “force[d] the authorities to withdraw”:

• British officials described colonists as violent mobs, provoking chaos.

• The British soldiers claimed self-defense, responding to colonists throwing snowballs, clubs, and oyster shells.

• British believed the incident was instigated by colonial radicals, not an act of tyranny

• “certainly [been] instigated”

• John Adams, a Patriot, defended the British soldiers in court, emphasizing justice.

• This reflects the divide in colonial views: some saw the soldiers as victims of provocation, while others saw them as occupiers.

standing army threat to natural rights

• “dire threat to freedom”

• Colonists saw the standing army as a threat to their republican ideals and independence (Locke, 1690).

• Quartering Act (1765) forced colonists to house British soldiers, violating property rights and autonomy.

• Britain shifted army costs (£300,000 annually) onto the colonies, reinforcing fears of control over defense and increasing calls for self-governance.

• “seventeen long months” were “incompatible with the eighteenth-century..”

• After 150 years of salutary neglect, Britain suddenly imposed control through the Townshend Duties (1767), fueling resentment.

• Colonists saw these acts as violations of their long-standing freedoms and natural rights to liberty (Locke, 1690), feeling their autonomy was under direct attack