Background Information

On a cold and windy morning in February 1770, eleven-year-old Christopher Seider was one of several hundred adults and youths surrounding the house of Ebenezer Richardson in Boston's North End. Richardson was known Tory informer for the British customs commissioners who had been sent to Boston in 1767 to collect duties on colonial imports set by Parliament in the Townshend Acts.

In port cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, mob demonstrations against these Acts occurred frequently. Sometimes they were spontaneous but many were organized by "Sons of Liberty" Patriot leaders like Samuel Adams. The mob that was throwing insults as well as eggs, rotten fruit, sticks, snowballs, ice and stones at Richardson's house had no leader. Flying debris broke most of the windowpanes and a rock hit Richardson's wife. Terrified, he grabbed an unloaded musket and shoved through a shattered window. Undaunted, the crowd proceeded to break down his door. Richardson then loaded his weapon with small birdshot pellets and fired into the mob. Christopher Seider fell bleeding onto the street with eleven deadly pellets in his chest and abdomen. He died later that evening.

Richardson was arrested and charged with giving Christopher Seider a "very dangerous wound." This indictment was later changed to murder. Seider's death provided Samuel Adams and other Patriot leaders with a young martyr to British tyranny and served as a grim omen for future mob violence in Boston.

By 1770 there were nearly 600 redcoat soldiers of the British Army stationed in Boston. Many were Irish Catholic, some were blacks, and all except the officers were uneducated and poor. Ill-mannered and uncouth, the soldiers spent much of their off-duty time drinking "demon rum" and street-fighting. They were brazenly cursed by the citizens, called "lobsters" because of their bright red uniforms, and were often the butt of practical jokes. Most Bostonians hated the redcoat soldiers who they believed had been sent to take away their freedom. In fact, Samuel Adams wrote that he thought it possible that the British "in calling for a military force under pretense of supporting civil authority, secretly intended to introduce a general massacre." That the British soldiers who occupied Boston in early 1770 intended to "massacre" some of Boston's 16,000 citizens seems improbable today, but in March of that year many residents feared otherwise. Tensions were high and each group — soldiers and citizens — anticipated an attack that it believed its opponents had "plotted" well in advance.

On March 2, 1770 only four days after Christopher Seider's funeral, a British soldier named Thomas Walker of the 29th Regiment entered John Gray's ropewalk looking for work. It was his day off. Army pay was low and soldiers often sought extra work while off duty. Ropemaker William Green asked him: "Soldier, do you want work?" "Yes, I do," replied Walker. Green shouted in his face, "Well, then go and clean my outhouse." Walker's face turned as red as his coat with humiliation as Green and the other ropemakers roared with laughter. "Empty it yourself, you scum," yelled the angry walker. Taunts and curses soon changed to fists as Walker and several ropemakers started to exchange blows. One ropemaker, Nicholas Ferriter, finally knocked the soldier on his rear end. Walker got up and ran for help.

He returned a few minutes later with several fellow soldiers and Gray's ropewalk was quickly jammed with soldiers and ropemakers fighting with fists, wooden clubs, and swords. A tall black soldier was asked, "You black rascal! What have you to do with white people's quarrels?" He replied, "I suppose I may look on." Private Walker, Private Kilroy, Nicholas Ferriter, and Sam Gray all distinguished themselves in the fighting. Both sides suffered bloody injuries until the heavily outnumbered soldiers were driven from the ropewalk.

The next day, March 3, three soldiers returned to the ropewalk and renewed the fight until one received a fractured skull. Private John Carroll later recalled hearing a Bostonian ask where the 29th Regiment "planned to bury its dead." A ropemaker, however, swore that he heard a soldier say that "there were a great many townspeople who would eat their dinners on Monday next who would not eat any on Tuesday."

Like the incident at the ropewalk, this quarrel began with a British soldier and a young British worker. Private Hugh White of the 29th Regiment was on guard duty at the sentry box on King Street near the Custom House. As Edward Garrick, a teenage wigmaker's apprentice, was passing the sentry box he spotted a British officer named Captain Goldfinch. He shouted in Private White's face: "There goes the fellow that will not pay my master for dressing his hair." Garrick Was soon joined by other passing youths who continued the rude criticisms of Captain Goldfinch. Finally, Private White — having had enough of this name calling — defended the officer by saying he was an "officer and a gentleman who always paid his debts." Garrick said sarcastically: "There are no gentlemen in the 29th Regiment!" Private White then said to Garrick: "Let me see your face!" Garrick thrust his jaw out and White immediately smashed his seven-kilo Brown Bess musket into his face. Garrick crashed to the ground bleeding. Within minutes a crowd of over fifty townsmen had gathered and were shouting curses and daring Private White to fight them.

With bayonet fixed, White slowly retreated back to the steps of the Custom House and loaded his musket. "D—d rascally scoundrel!" they shouted at Walker as the town bells began to ring signally the alarm of "fire." As the crowd grew in size it also became more aggressive. People began throwing large chunks of ice at White and screaming: "Kill him, knock him down! Fire, d--n you! You dare not fire!" Terrified, White yelled "Turn out the Guard! Main Guard, turn out!"

Elsewhere similar mobs of townsmen were gathering in the streets near the Custom House. Volleys of snowballs were being hurled at soldiers and several British officers, including Captain Goldfinch, were patrolling the streets ordering their men into the barracks to prevent violence.

As the church bells rang, hundreds of Bostonians began to descend on King Street — many carrying buckets since they believed the town was on fire. Others, however, carried clubs, snowballs, and chunks of ice. "There is no fire!" shouted one youth to a man who replied: "D—n, I am glad of it! I will knock some of them soldiers on the head!" Another was heard to say he "had a sword to chop off a soldier's head."

Hearing what sounded like a riot, Captain Thomas Preston led a column of seven soldiers onto King Street. Their muskets were empty and shouldered, but their bayonets were fixed. They pushed their way through a crowd that now numbered nearly 400 and finally reached the Custom House steps and the besieged Private White. Preston then tried to march the men back to the Main Guard Station, but the crowd would not let them pass. Hammond Green, a well-known Tory, peered tentatively out his office window on the second floor of the Customs House. Someone in the mob shouted, "Fire, d—n you! You can't kill all of us!" Preston formed his men into a semi-circle and the soldiers loaded their muskets with double-shot. He then shouted to the crowd to "disperse," but only received in reply curses, laughter, further threats, and snow balls.

Meanwhile, a Tory justice of the peace, James Murray, arrived on King Street to read the "Riot Act." This was a law that forbid riotous gatherings. He was driven away by the mob with showers of snowballs and chunks of ice.

The crowd, including Edward Langford, Sam Atwood, Crispus Attucks, and James Brewer, became even more daring as some used clubs to beat against the soldiers' muskets while others hurled snowballs and ice. Captain Preston was trying hard to keep the terrified soldiers under his command from firing. At one point he even stepped in front of his men so that if they did fire he would be the first victim. A large man (later identified by some as Crispus Attucks) struck out at the Captain with a large cordwood stick crying, "Kill the dogs, knock them over."

Suddenly a club flew from the mob, hitting Private Hugh Montgomery squarely in the face and knocking him to the ground along with his heavy musket. Montgomery rose to his feet, shouted, "D—n you, fire" and pulled the trigger of his weapon. The explosion momentarily silenced the crowd. No one seemed to have been hit. Instants later the crowd surged forward at Preston and his men, swinging with their wooden clubs. Richard Palmes hit Private Montgomery with his club. He then aimed a blow at Captain Preston which was deflected by Private warren's musket and landed on his arm. During this time — from fifteen seconds to two minutes (accounts vary) — the other soldiers fired their muskets. Private Kilroy pointed his musket at Sam Gray and Edward Langford. Langford yelled, "God d—n you, don't fire!" Kilroy fired and Gray fell to the ground dead — his hands in his pockets and a hole in his head the size of a fist. The huge black man, Crispus Attucks, fell to the ground with "two Balls entering his Breast." All the rest of the soldiers fired, reloaded, and fired a second volley into the crowd. Captain Preston finally shoved the smoking gun barrels down as the blood from the wounded and dead citizens of Boston flowed onto King street.

Preston's men began to tell him that they had fired after hearing what they believed to be his command to fire. As the crowd drew back carrying dead and wounded citizens, Preston was able to march the men to the Main Guard Station. Then he assembled the entire Guard, marched them formation to King Street, and set them up in a "street firing position" — the 18th-century tactic for controlling riots in narrow streets. Rows of soldiers stood in a single-file formation. The soldier at the head of the line would shoot, then move to the back of the line, reload, and wait his turn at the front to shoot.

Word spread quickly through the cold night that five men lay dead or dying including a black sailor named Crispus Attucks (described by contemporaries as a powerfully built runaway "mulatto" and a leader of the mob), an Irish-Catholic immigrant named Patrick Carr, Samuel Gray, the son of the ropewalk owner, 17 year old Samuel Maverick and a young sailor named James Caldwell.

Moderate Patriot leaders pleaded with Lt. Governor Hutchinson to order Captain Preston's soldiers from King Street before more blood flowed. Hutchinson spoke to Preston and then addressed the crowd from the balcony of Town Hall, asking them to leave peacefully and assuring them that the men responsible for the shooting would be brought before the law. Then Preston's superior officer, Lt. Colonel Maurice Carr, arrived and ordered Preston and his soldiers to abandon the street firing position and return to their barracks. As the troops marched off, the mob, now silent, drifted away and the night was finally silent.

At 2 A.M. on March 6 the town sheriff served a warrant on Captain Preston. later, the eight redcoat soldiers under his command were arrested and all nine men were charged with murder.

Captain Preston's trial began on October 24, 1770 in the new courthouse on Queen (now Court) Street and lasted for six days. It was the first criminal trial in Massachusetts to last more than one day. One of the prosecutors was a well-known Tory named Samuel Quincy. His defense was handled by two of Boston's leading patriot lawyers, John Adams and Josiah Quincy. It was evident that the Patriot leaders felt it was necessary to prove to the British government and the public that the defendants were getting a fair trial.

The soldiers realized that they would have a better chance of acquittal if they were tried with their commanding officer. They petitioned the superior court saying, "Let us have our trial at the same time with our Captain, for we did our Captain's orders and if we didn't Obey his commands we should have been confined and shot for not doing it." Their request was denied. The second trial, that of the eight soldiers under Preston's command, began nearly a month later on November 27 and ended on December 5. (However, for the purpose of this simulation, the two trials have been combined as "Rex (the King) vs. Preston, et. a.")

Shoales, Gary Parker, Justice and Dissent: Ready-to Use Materials for Recreating Five Great Trials in American History, The Center for Applied Research in Education, NewYork, 1995

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