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the middle of a crowded street. The attack did not stop with a fight, shot started to break out as
British soldiers tried to defend themselves from the angry colonist. As the British soldiers shot
into the crowd of angry colonist, they ended up killing three civilians and then injuring eight, two
of which were mortally.i In the years leading up to this event British Parliament was trying to use
laws of taxation to help them recuperate from the French and Indian War as well as maintain the
control over the American colonies. As a result of these laws the colonists started to get angry
with Britain and began to boycott the new heavy taxation that parliament was trying to impose
on them. Due to the colonist boycotting the taxes British soldiers were kept in the colonies and
more were sent to try and keep control over the colonies as well as ensure the taxes were being
collected. By the Britian doing so went against treaties which were that during peace time there
would be no troops in the colonies. On top of British troops being in colonies during peace time
a lot of them were rude and treated the colonist badly which did not help the tension. By Britian
going against the treaties caused the colonist to get angrier and build tension between the
colonies and Britian. This event is also known as what led the colonies to start the Revolutionary
War. This is the point of view most people learn about when it comes to this event. But as with
everything there is always another side to the story.
1 Liberty of Congress, Today in History Boston Massacre, 2023.
Now to look at the Boston Massacre and the event leading up to this event through
another point of view. People know how the colonists were affected and what lead them to the
Boston Massacre but what about the side of the British troops and their families what did they go
1 Liberty of Congress, Today in History Boston Massacre, 2023.
3
through leading up to it. Back during the eighteenth century the British Army would travel with
woman and children as well. Most of these women were married to soldiers and the main reason
that they would travel with their husbands was to work for the army as well doing task such as
laundry, or providing medical care and just overall ensuring that the men were cleaned so they
could remain in the fight ii. One of the biggest struggles the British soldiers and their families had
was constantly being forced to move and having to learn new areas and usually looked like the
bad people trying to enforce the British Parliament even though most men only joined to obtain a
stable paycheck and did not really care about the laws they had to enforce. But this would cause
some soldiers to have resentment towards the colonists for having to be in the colonies. This also
caused a lot of soldiers to either run away from the army find a woman to marry or just be rude
and mean to the colonists. By the soldiers trying to make connections and some even families
with colonist on the day the Boston Massacre happened those British troops had a hard choice to
make either they duty as a soldier or the part of their individual life's that they had created.2
2 Zabin, Serena. The Boston Massacre: A Family History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company, 2020. Accessed March 23, 2023. ProQuest eBook Central.
One of the biggest take ways from the Boston Massacre is that as most people learn that it was
the British Parliament caused the event to happen due to the taxations and going against the
treaties with the colonies. But taking a step back a looking at the event from the colonist side and
2 Zabin, Serena. The Boston Massacre: A Family History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
2020. Accessed March 23, 2023. ProQuest eBook Central.
4
the British side reviles that both sides were at fault for this event happing. The tension that built
between them did not have to get to the point where the massacre happened. Those British
soldiers that had made those connections with the colonist could have used that to aid in the
easing of the tension by trying to hold meetings and discuss ways both sides could do ease the
other side. If this was done, the tension between the colonists and the troops would have been
weakened. As a result, the massacre could have been avoided, which also brings up other
questions. For example, without this event would the Revolutionary War still have happened.
Bibliography
Zabin, Serena R. The Boston Massacre a Family History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
2020. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/reader.action?docID=6031489
Liberty of Congress, Today in History Boston Massacre, 2023. https://www.loc.gov/item/today-
in-history/march-05/
