Essay On The Boston Massacre

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The Boston Massacre was a fundamental event at the beginning of the American Revolution. The massacre became part of anti-British propaganda for Boston activists and fed American fears of the English military in both the North and South. The Boston Massacre was the first “battle” in the Revolutionary War. Although it wasn’t until five years after the Boston Massacre that the Revolutionary War officially began, the Boston Massacre was a forecast of the violent storm to come.
In the 1760s, Boston was full of disorder. With each new British law came protest from American colonists. The people of Boston believed that Britain did not have the right to tax them because they did not elect their representatives in Parliament. Only the Massachusetts Assembly, whose members were elected every year, had the right to tax its citizens. The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 led to boycotts and unrest, steered by a group known as the Sons of Liberty. As a result, the British government sent troops to Boston to keep order. Instead of staying in a fort on an island in the Boston harbor, the British troops stayed on the commons and were living in buildings in the middle of town. The British troops’ presence in Boston was not welcome and Bostonians viewed them as a threat. Because they did not like the English army in their city, fights between the American colonists and the British troops were common.
One night, on March 5, 1770, a street fight occurred between a group of American patriots and some British soldiers stationed in Boston. The Americans harassed the troops by yelling and shouting names at them and throwing snowballs and sticks. A crowd formed and in the noise and confusion, weapons were fired. In the end, ...

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...ks. They ambushed the ship and dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. They called this event the Boston Tea Party.
Next came the Intolerable Acts, a series of laws passed by Great Britain to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party and to strengthen British control over the Colonies. The Patriots viewed the Acts as a violation of the rights of Massachusetts, and in September 1774 they organized the First Continental Congress to organize a protest. As tensions grew, the American Revolutionary War officially commenced in April 1775.
The Boston Massacre was a critical point in American history and fueled the American Revolution. It caused the Royal Governor to evacuate the occupying British troops from Boston. The Boston Massacre united the colonies in their fight for independence which, along with continued propaganda, led to the Revolutionary War.

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