Page 148 - American Stories, A History of the United States

ministry transferred 4000 regular troops (redcoats) from Nova Scotia and Ireland
to Boston. To make relations with the Bostonians worse, redcoats—men who were 5.1
ill-treated and underpaid—competed in their spare time for jobs with dockworkers
and artisans. Work was already in short supply in Boston, and the streets crackled
with tension. 5.2
When colonists questioned why the army had been sent to a peaceful city, pam-
phleteers responded that it was there to further a conspiracy originally conceived by
Bute to oppress Americans, take away their liberties, and collect illegal revenues. Such 5.3
rhetoric may sound excessive, but to Americans who had absorbed the political theo-
ries of the Commonwealthmen, a pattern of tyranny seemed obvious.
Colonists had no difficulty interpreting the violence that erupted in Boston on 5.4
March 5, 1770. In the gathering dusk of that afternoon, young boys and street toughs
threw rocks and snowballs at a small, isolated patrol of soldiers outside the offices of
the hated customs commissioners in King Street. The details are obscure, but it appears
that as the mob became more threatening, the soldiers panicked and fired, killing five
Americans.
Pamphleteers promptly labeled the incident the Boston Massacre. The victims Boston massacre A violent
were seen as martyrs and were memorialized in extravagant terms. In one eulogy, clash between british troops and
Joseph Warren addressed the dead men’s widows and children, dramatically re- a boston mob on March 5, 1770.
creating the gruesome scene in King Street: “Behold thy murdered husband gasping Five citizens were killed when
the troops fired into the crowd.
on the ground . . . take heed, ye orphan babes, lest, whilst your streaming eyes are the incident inflamed anti-british
fixed upon the ghastly corpse, your feet slide on the stones bespattered with your sentiment in Massachusetts.
father’s brains.” To propagandists like Warren, it mattered little that the five civil-
ians had been bachelors! Paul Revere’s blood-splattered engraving of the massacre
became an instant best-seller. Confronted with such intense reactions and the pos-
sibility of massive armed resistance, crown officials removed the army to an island
in Boston Harbor.
At this critical moment, the king’s new first minister restored a measure of tran-
quility. Lord North, congenial, well-meaning, but not very talented, became chancel-
lor of the exchequer after Townshend’s death in 1767. North was appointed the first
minister in 1770, and for the next 12 years—indeed, throughout most of the American
crisis—he retained his office. The secret to his success seems to have been an ability to
get along with George III and build a majority in Parliament.
One of North’s first recommendations to Parliament was to repeal the Townshend
duties. These ill-conceived duties had unnecessarily angered the colonists and hurt
English manufacturers. By taxing British exports such as glass and paint, Parliament
had only encouraged the Americans to develop their own industries. Without much
prodding, Parliament dropped all the Townshend duties—except for tea. The tax on tea
was retained, not for revenue purposes, North insisted, but as a reminder that Britain’s
rulers still subscribed to the principles of the Declaratory Act. They would not compro-
mise the supremacy of Parliament.
Samuel Adams (1722–1803) refused to accept the notion that the repeal of the
Townshend duties had secured American liberty. During the early 1770s, while colo-
nial leaders turned to other matters, Adams kept the cause alive with a drumfire of
publicity. He reminded Bostonians that the tax on tea remained in force. He organized
public anniversaries commemorating the repeal of the Stamp Act and the Boston committees of correspondence
Massacre. Adams was a revolutionary, an ideologue burning with indignation at the communication network formed in
real and alleged wrongs his countrymen suffered. Massachusetts and other colonies
With each new attempt by Parliament to assert its supremacy over the colonists, to commu nicate grievances and
more Bostonians listened to Adams. He observed ominously that the British intended provide colonists with evidence of
to use the tea revenue to pay judicial salaries, thus freeing colonial judges from british oppression.
dependence on the assemblies. When in November 1772 Adams suggested forming
a committee of correspondence to communicate grievances to villagers throughout
Massachusetts, he received broad support. Americans in other colonies copied his idea. Quick Check
It was a brilliant stroke. Adams developed a structure of political cooperation indepen- Why was it a mistake for the British
dent of royal government. to station regular troops in Boston?
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