Riots and Tumults
As the crisis mounted, colonials confronted British officialdom
with increasing violence.
The Boston Massacre
The decision to station troops in Boston served to aggravate
an already tense situation. On the evening of March 5,
1770, a platoon of British soldiers fired on some
Americans who had been harassing them, killing five.
The ensuing trial, in which the British were defended
by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, two of Boston's
radicals, proved a propaganda coup. The acquittal of
the soldiers showed everyone that in America even the
hated British received a fair trial.
A useful pictorial version of the event
was Paul Revere's engraving
of the Boston Massacre (71K jpg).
What is the significance of Revere's naming the building
on the right of the print, "Butcher's Hall"?
The Tea Party
Parliament's passage of the Tea Act in 1773 was the
occasion for an escalation of violent reactions against
British colonial policy. The Boston Tea Party, during
which patriots dumped forty-five tons of tea into
Boston harbor, triggered sympathetic responses in other
colonial ports, and began a new wave of assaults against
the agents who collected Britain's commercial revenues.
Contemporary portrayals of the
tarring and feathering of tax collectors were long
on revolutionary symbolism.
The British, of course,
viewed the incident differently. British public
opinion tended to view American protesters and rioters
as criminals, savages, or spoiled children. In an English
song of the period, "The World
Turned Upside Down, or the Old Woman Taught Wisdom,"
America is portrayed as a disobedient daughter, who
evades her duty through the intervention of "Farmer Pitt."
What symbols can you find in the two cartoons which refer
to mob actions in the colonies? Are any of these symbols used
differently to illustrate different viewpoints?
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