The Boston "Massacre": When a Bad Haircut Changed History
By the late 1760s, Boston was basically a timebomb waiting to go off. The British government had imposed a series of unpopular taxes that the colonists argued were unfair and unjust, given their lack of representation in Parliament. Boston—a city known for its rebellious streak—was leading the charge in opposing British policies. King George III, always willing to make a bad situation even worse, decided that sending 4,000 troops into a city of 16,000 people would be a great plan to restore order. Tempers were high, the streets were crowded, and folks were itching for a fight. It wasn’t a question of if something would happen but when. That “something” happened on March 5, 1770, when a snowball, a club, and a bad haircut all played starring roles in one of the most infamous nights in Boston’s history.
March 5, 1770: The Night of the Massacre
Captain John Goldfinch, a British officer stationed in Boston, was walking back to the barracks when a young barber’s apprentice, Edward Garrick, shouted an insult at him. Apparently, the captain had cheated the kid by not paying for his haircut. Another soldier nearby did what any man might have done when a name-calling kid was threatening his captain; he clubbed him in the face with the butt of his musket. Garrick ran off crying.
Goldfinch continued making his way back to the barracks when he ran into an angry crowd who were getting into their own fight with a different group of soldiers. Goldfinch ordered those troops back to barracks, and things died down. That is until a second angry mob armed with clubs came marching down the street with the barber’s apprentice leading the way. The crowd grew and began pelting the soldiers and shouting death threats. More troops arrived to defend their buddies and disperse the crowd. You can imagine the chaos that was unfolding. Then Captain Thomas Preston, hit in the head with an ice ball, ordered his troops to fire. When the musket smoke had cleared, a dozen colonists were lying bleeding in the snow. Three died instantly; two would die later from their wounds, and six seriously injured. The soldiers wisely decided to high-tail it out of there and locked themselves inside their barracks. The streets of Boston had erupted into open warfare.
The Trial and Its Aftermath
The drama didn’t stop when the shooting ended. In fact, things were just getting started. The governor, Thomas Hutchinson, rushed to the scene to try and restore order. Hutchinson wasn’t exactly popular in Boston, but he made a smart move by promising to remove the troops from the city and having Captain Preston and eight of his soldiers arrested. It was a clever mix of appeasing the angry mob and protecting the soldiers from an immediate lynching.
When it came time for the trial, John Adams, future president of the United States, stepped in to defend the soldiers. Adams wasn’t a fan of the British occupation, but he believed in fairness, even when it wasn’t the popular choice. His defense painted the crowd as a dangerous mob throwing ice, snowballs, and insults, practically daring the soldiers to fire. The jury agreed—mostly. Six soldiers were acquitted, and two were found guilty of manslaughter. Their punishment? Branding on the thumb, which was about as lenient as it got back then.
Boston Massacre According
to Paul Revere
Boston Massacre According
to Reality
Two Views on the Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was more than just a chaotic street fight—it was a story with two very different sides. For the British, it was an unfortunate accident where panicked soldiers fired in self-defense. For the colonists, it was a brutal attack that proved just how dangerous the British could be. Thanks to Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, the colonists’ version of events became the one everyone remembered.
Even though the trial ended with light punishments for the soldiers, the Boston Massacre left a big impression on the colonies. The term “massacre” usually makes you think of a planned, large-scale killing, which doesn’t exactly match what happened that night. But Paul Revere wasn’t going to let facts get in the way. His famous engraving turned the messy brawl into something that looked like a cold-blooded attack. Soldiers stood in a perfect line, calmly firing into a helpless crowd, while colonists collapsed dramatically in the street. And let’s not forget the random dog casually hanging out in the middle of it all. Revere’s engraving wasn’t just art—it was a way to fire people up and make them angry at the British.
The image spread everywhere—newspapers, taverns, you name it. People couldn’t stop talking about what happened that night. The revolution was still a few years away, but the seeds of rebellion were definitely planted in the snow of Boston.
Test Page