{"id":7820,"date":"2008-03-05T18:08:40","date_gmt":"2008-03-05T23:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7820"},"modified":"2026-04-13T21:05:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T01:05:36","slug":"today-in-history-march-5-1770-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=7820","title":{"rendered":"Today in history, March 5, 1770"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boston Massacre<\/a>. Probably should say “massacre” – with quotation marks – since “massacre” was a bit of a stretch – and used more for propaganda purposes. Same as Paul Revere’s famous engraving – which is pretty much how we, modern-day folks, see the Boston Massacre. It’s his image – kind of brilliant (below the fold) that sticks in our mind … the smoke from the guns, advancing redcoats, and the poor victimized colonists … who did NOTHING to provoke such a massacre. Naturally, the truth was a little bit more complex. The rebellious crowd had gathered after an altercation between one of them and a British soldier. The British soldiers brandished their weapons, but did not shoot. The crowd were throwing things at the British soldiers – mainly snowballs, and ice. Taunting them, etc. When the whole thing ended – 5 colonists lay dead.<\/p>\n

The tale of this massacre spread throughout the land – naturally, it was in the colonists interests to keep the outrage alive, to pump it up, to fan the flames of resentment towards the British standing army in their midst.<\/p>\n

One of the most important things about the Boston massacre is John Adams’ part in the aftermath of it. He, a lawyer in the area, defended the British soldiers. Nobody could accuse him of harboring sympathies for the British crown – although, of course, that was what he was accused of. And whatever he may have thought about the soldiers, he did think they deserved a defense. And whatever this new entity would be … whatever this new nation would be, if they ever freed themselves from the British yoke – Adams was committed to the idea that it would be a nation “of laws, not men”.<\/p>\n

Laws above men. It is the principle<\/i> of the thing. (It reminds me of the great story of Alexander Hamilton lambasting the unruly crowds clamoring to attack the pro-British president of King’s College. He was just a student at that time, and although he was on his way to being a full-time revolutionary – any mob like that terrified and angered him. He stood on the steps of the college and made a fiery speech about liberty that people talked about later – it was remembered. Pretty amazing.) The detachment of these gentlemen. Principled detachment.<\/p>\n

Below the fold find Paul Revere’s stirring engraving – propaganda, basically – very successful propaganda. Love it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Boston Massacre. Probably should say “massacre” – with quotation marks – since “massacre” was a bit of a stretch – and used more for propaganda purposes. Same as Paul Revere’s famous engraving – which is pretty much how we, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,39],"tags":[1557,141],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7820"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181576,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820\/revisions\/181576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}