The Boston Massacre, or, The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston on March 5, 1770 by a party of the 29th Regiment

A Boston silversmith and engraver, Revere issued this print fifteen days after the infamous confrontation there between British troops and locals. With two thousand British soldiers in the city to enforce the collection of taxes on imported goods, tensions grew. On March 5, 1770, Americans threw stones and ice balls at a lone guard outside the Custom House. The soldiers called for reinforcements and eventually fired their rifles. Among the five fallen men was Crispus Attucks, a sailor and dockworker of Native (Wampanoag) and African American ancestry, shown here in the foreground. Revere’s print casts the British as instigators and callous executioners, and it helped push the colonies toward revolution.