1770 – Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are fatally shot by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the American War of Independence five years later. In the cold, snowy night, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. The protesters, who called themselves Patriots, were protesting the occupation of their city by British troops, who were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by a British parliament that lacked American representation. British Captain Thomas Preston, the commanding officer at the Customs House, ordered his men to fix their bayonets and join the guard outside the building. The colonists responded by throwing snowballs and other objects at the British regulars, and Private Hugh Montgomery was hit, leading him to discharge his rifle at the crowd. The other soldiers began firing a moment later, and when the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead or dying – Crispus Attucks, Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, and James Caldwell – and three more were injured. Although it is unclear whether Crispus Attucks, an African American, was the first to fall as is commonly believed, the deaths of the five men are regarded by some historians as the first fatalities in the American Revolutionary War. The British soldiers were put on trial, and patriots John Adams and Josiah Quincy agreed to defend the soldiers in a show of support of the colonial justice system. When the trial ended in December 1770, two British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter and had their thumbs branded with an “M” for murder as punishment. The Sons of Liberty, a Patriot group formed in 1765 to oppose the Stamp Act, advertised the “Boston Massacre” as a battle for American liberty and just cause for the removal of British troops from Boston. Patriot Paul Revere made a provocative engraving of the incident, depicting the British soldiers lining up like an organized army to suppress an idealized representation of the colonist uprising. Copies of the engraving were distributed throughout the colonies and helped reinforce negative American sentiments about British rule. In April 1775, the American Revolution began when British troops from Boston skirmished with American militiamen at the battles of Lexington and Concord. The British troops were under orders to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington and to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord. Neither missions were accomplished because of Paul Revere and William Dawes, who rode ahead of the British, warning Adams and Hancock and rousing the Patriot minutemen. Eleven months later, in March 1776, British forces had to evacuate Boston following American General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights. This bloodless liberation of Boston brought an end to the hated eight-year British occupation of the city. For the victory, General Washington, commander of the Continental Army, was presented with the first medal ever awarded by the Continental Congress. It would be more than five years before the Revolutionary War came to an end with British General Charles Cornwallis’ surrender to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia.
1781 – General Howe orders the evacuation of Boston. On the 4th, the General had noticed how many cannon The Colonials had pointed at him and his troops from Dorchester Heights, South of Boston, he couldn’t believe how much work they had done in, what he believed to be, just one night. “The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could do in months.” He didn’t realize it took two nights, because the Continentals hid the evidence of their first night’s work. General Washington and his troops had put their guns on Dorchester Heights where they could command Boston, threaten the British Army, and made the Boston Harbor unsafe for any British ship. First General Howe planned to attack to recapture Dorchester Heights. Then he decided to leave Boston and move his troops to New York, which was more important to both armies since it would control the traffic to and from Canada. A big storm came up that night giving the General an excuse for the evacuation.
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