The Blame Of The Boston Massacre In American History

The Boston Massacre was a very significant event in American history. Although a single group cannot be blamed for the event in its entirety, the British soldiers should receive most of the blame. It should be noted, however, that the colonists did play a role in causing the incident. The actions that the British took the night of the Massacre were unnecessary. According to William Tant’s unbiased account in Primary Source #2 of what happened that night while the Bostonians were simply throwing “some more snow balls”, “instantly the soldiers fired one after another. In his recollection of the Boston Massacre, Captain Preston also included “snowballs being thrown” and how “instantly three or four soldiers fired one after another”. As a British captain, Preston would bend the facts as much to the soldiers’ favor as possible allowing one to infer that his testimony of what happened during the event would have left out certain other wrong doings of the British soldiers, making the actions of the soldiers potentially worse than what Preston admitted to. Considering that the British soldiers were firing guns and taking away lives, the throwing of snowballs by the Bostonians is minute. Taking away lives is extreme and uncomparable to getting hit by a cold ball of frozen water. As demonstrated through Primary Source #5 which is Paul
Revere’s Engraving “The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King-Street…, most feel Bostonians are blameless in the event. Revere illustrates the event as Bostonians not having done anything wrong and lying helplessly as the soldiers were firing away at them. This illustration does not depict Bostonians throwing snowballs at the soldiers which happened in accordance to other reliable sources. Although throwing snowballs is not severe, it definitely sparked the soldiers’ outrage and led them to fire at the Bostonians. As men in uniform, the British soldiers expected respect and would not tolerate having snowballs thrown at them. Since they had guns at their fingertips, they took advantage of their authority and did not allow any disrespect. Furthermore, Bostonians unreasonably feel the British fired “without the least warning of their intention” as stated in Primary Source #1 which is written from the patriot viewpoint. This mentality is illogical because if the Bostonians were repeatedly throwing snowballs at the soldiers, the soldiers will obviously be infuriated and a reaction would most likely be evoked, showing that the Bostonians are not as blameless as they feel they are. As stated in Primary Source #7, John Adams justly distributes the blame of causing the event amongst the two groups.
He states that, “Judgement of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches.” He then continues to say, “This however, is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre”. In other words, Adams recognizes that the soldiers could not have been entirely blamed for the event since the Bostonians provoked them to do so, but also that they took matters too far by murdering the Bostonians who were simply throwing snowballs at
him. All in all, the British soldiers and Bostonians were both responsible for the Massacre, but the British soldiers deserve more of the blame. The Bostonians were throwing snowballs at the soldiers which provoked the soldiers’ reaction, but that does not justify murder. The Boston Massacre demonstrates the complexity of history and how it is not written in black and white.