History Under the Lens: The Loyalist Account of the Boston Massacre, 1770

What the Article Doesn't Tell You: This Is Loyalist Propaganda

The single most important fact missing from this article is its authorship and intent. This text is almost certainly a Loyalist or pro-Crown account written in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770 — likely the same account attributed to Captain Thomas Preston himself, or a sympathetic pamphlet written to counter the patriot narrative. The article the reader is examining is not a neutral report; it is a deliberate rebuttal to what it calls "the Boston Narrative," a reference to the patriot-published account that popularized the term "massacre." Understanding this framing is essential to evaluating every claim within it.

The event described — soldiers firing into a crowd on King Street — killed five people and wounded six others. Three died instantly: Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, and James Caldwell. Samuel Maverick, a 17-year-old, died the next morning, and Patrick Carr died nearly two weeks later from his wounds. The article under review mentions "three men killed on the spot" and "two have since died of their wounds," which is factually accurate — but the article's framing of these deaths as entirely the crowd's fault is where the historical record becomes far more contested.

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What the Article Claims vs. What Evidence Supports

The crowd's size and armament: The article claims "more than a hundred people armed with sticks and bludgeons" confronted twelve soldiers. Historical sources place the initial crowd at 50–60 people surrounding a single sentry. The article's figure of "three hundred people assembled at Liberty-Tree" comes from a secondhand report by a "Mr. Fleming" — an unverified claim presented as fact. The crowd did pelt troops with snow, ice, oyster shells, and taunts including "lobster," "bloody-back," and "coward," which the article corroborates, but the characterization of the crowd as a uniformly armed, organized mob overstates the evidence.

Captain Preston's conduct: The article portrays Preston as a humane officer who repeatedly urged the crowd to disperse and gave no order to fire. This is largely consistent with the historical record. Preston was indeed acquitted at trial because the defense successfully argued there was insufficient evidence he gave the order to fire. John Adams, who defended Preston, secured his "honorable acquittal." The article's account of the firing — that a soldier was struck by ice, staggered, and fired without orders, with others following — aligns with the historical finding that the soldiers fired a ragged, undisciplined series of shots rather than a coordinated volley.

The number of soldiers: The article says "twelve soldiers, headed by Captain Preston." Historical sources consistently place the number at seven soldiers plus Preston (eight total). This is a notable factual discrepancy in the article's account.

The legal context the article omits: The article never mentions a crucial legal detail that shaped the crowd's behavior: the colonists knew the Riot Act had not been read, which meant soldiers legally could not fire their weapons until it had been read aloud and one hour had passed. This context explains why the crowd was emboldened and why taunts of "fire and be damned" were not simply reckless bravado — the crowd believed, with legal justification, that the soldiers were constrained from shooting.

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What the Article Omits or Underplays

Crispus Attucks and the identities of the dead: The article refers to the victims only as "inhabitants" and "some of them." It never names the dead. The most prominent victim, Crispus Attucks — a Black sailor of African and Native American descent — became an enduring symbol of the American patriot cause. The erasure of the victims' identities is a rhetorical choice that serves the article's argument by depersonalizing those killed.

The propaganda war: The article attacks "the Boston Narrative" and Paul Revere's famous engraving The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King-Street, which became one of the most widely distributed visual depictions of the event. Revere's engraving depicted a disciplined line of soldiers firing on a peaceful crowd — a portrayal that historians acknowledge differed significantly from eyewitness testimony and Preston's account. The article is essentially one side of an 18th-century information war, but it presents itself as the voice of reason against "gross abuse of language."

The soldiers' subsequent trial: The article makes no mention of the trial of the soldiers themselves (separate from Preston's trial). Of the eight soldiers tried, six were acquitted and two — Matthew Kilroy and Hugh Montgomery — were convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. They were branded on the thumb and released. This outcome suggests the legal system of the time did not fully exonerate the soldiers' conduct, even as it stopped short of murder convictions.

The broader political context: The article frames the crowd's hostility as irrational hatred of the King's troops, but omits that British soldiers had been quartered in Boston since 1768 under the Quartering Act — a source of deep resentment — and that the Townshend Acts, which imposed duties on imported goods, had inflamed colonial opinion for years. The article's reference to colonists who "deny the authority of the British parliament" treats this as a fringe position, yet it was the dominant view in Boston at the time.

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Broader Context and Historical Implications

This text is a primary source document from 1770, not a modern news article — and reading it as such reveals how narrative construction around political violence has changed little in 250 years. Both sides in 1770 understood that controlling the story of March 5th was as important as the event itself. The patriot side had Paul Revere's engraving and the "Boston Narrative." The Loyalist side had accounts like this one.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute's 2024 teaching materials specifically use the comparison between Preston's account and Revere's engraving to teach students how historians evaluate conflicting primary source evidence. That pedagogical framing is directly applicable here: this article is a case study in how eyewitness or near-eyewitness accounts can be shaped by political allegiance, selective emphasis, and rhetorical intent.

Captain Preston's trial, which began October 24, 1770, was itself historically significant as the first trial in the American colonies to last longer than a single day — six days in total. The prosecution argued Preston bore responsibility for the deaths even without firing a shot; the defense argued the evidence was insufficient to prove he gave the order. Preston left Boston within a month of his acquittal, retired from the army, and reportedly settled in Ireland, though John Adams claimed to have seen him in London in the 1780s.

The event the article dismisses as not deserving the name "massacre" went on to become one of the most powerful catalysts for American independence — not because the facts were unambiguous, but precisely because they were not.