The French-Indian War was the American continent front of the Seven Years War [1756-63] which was being fought between France and England during that time. On the American continent, Britain and France were both trying to secure economic interests in the land west of the Appalachians. The French were based in Canada and wanted the area--containing both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers--as a good supply line for their hunters and trappers. The English wanted the land for their own purposes. Things were tense and each side worked with Indian allies to terrorize the settlers in the area.
One of the events that helped trigger the conflict was an action by Major George Washington--operating as a British loyalist with the Virginia militia--in 1754. Near present-day Jumonville Pennsylvania, Washington's men with their Indian allies launched a surprise attack on a French encampment. There's controversy about what the French were doing--getting ready to negotiate with English settlements in the area or trying to wipe them out militarily--but the French commander and nine others were killed. The brother of the French commander came back with 600 French troops and 100 Indian allies looking for vengeance. Washington set up a quick fort, called Fort Necessity, near the area and tried to hold out but had to surrender. The French were rather generous in accepting the surrender--the American troops were allowed to withdraw with honors--but the document in French included a statement where Washington accepted that he had "assassinated" the other commander. It was the only surrender in Washington's military career.
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 left Britain and its ally Russia victorious and the British colonies had control of a vast part of North America stretching west from the Appalachian Mountains. But Britain still had debts to pay. They figured that the colonies, which hadn't been paying much in the way of taxes in the past, owed something to the empire to pay for the war. Britain tried to enforce existing taxes [Stamp Act], the colonies resisted, Britain ditched those taxes and tried others [Townshend Acts], the colonies resisted [Boston Massacre], Britain tried other taxes, Boston dumped a million dollars worth of tea into the harbor, Britain sent in troops and new taxes [Coercive, or Intolerable, Acts], tensions grew, and eventually the battles at Concord and Lexington set off open fighting.
When you walk the "Freedom Trail" in Boston, you see many pivotal sites in the ignition of the American Revolution. There's the Old South Meeting House where citizens gathered to protest the taxes, the Old State House where the royal governor announced British edicts and outside which the "Boston Massacre" occurred [March 1770], Faneuil Hall where Samuel Adams wound up the populace and kicked off the Boston Tea Party [December 1773], Paul Revere's House, the Old North Church (where the lanterns were hung to alert the militia about the British coming by land or sea to Lexington and Concord [April 1775]), and Bunker Hill (actually Breed's Hill) [June 1775]. Without the hotheads in Boston, it's hard to imagine the revolution happening as soon as it did.
The "massacre" itself was almost a natural outgrowth of the tensions of the time. British regular troops had been sent to Boston to make sure that the Townshend Revenue Act taxes were collected. Samuel Adams and others made sure that there was constant friction between the troops and the population. After a schoolboy was killed in February 1770, angry words, brawls, and threats increased. On March 5, a British army officer paid a bill at a wigmakers shop but the apprentice from the shop followed him yelling at him for not paying the bill. An ominous crowd started to follow them. The officer entered the Custom House (across from the State House). The heckler continued. The guard on duty joined in the argument and hit the heckler with his rifle butt. A church bell was rung and several hundred people armed with sticks and clubs started surrounding the entrance. A British captain in a nearby barracks decided to rescue the guard so nine armed regulars joined the guard. Now they were only outnumbered ten to 200.
For fifteen minutes, the situation escalated ever further out of control. The crowd got uglier, daring the soldiers to fire, cursing them, pressing closer and closer. Snowballs and rocks started to hit the troops. Finally, someone hit a soldier with a thrown club and knocked him down. Now in panic, he stood and fired back at point-blank range. Other soldiers fired. The captain got them to cease firing. By that time, however, three Bostonians were dead in the streets, two others were mortally wounded, and several more were wounded. (Keep in mind that, at that time, firearms took a long time to load so getting off multiple shots in a quick time wasn't really possible. For ten soldiers to kill five colonists was unusually effective.)
Samuel Adams and the other propagandists turned this into a massacre. Paul Revere printed a famous illustration of the incident which shows a well-organized British force firing into an orderly crowd (complete with a cute little dog); the British captain is directing them to fire. It didn't happen this way.
A trial was held against the British troops afterward. John Adams (Samuel's cousin) and Josiah Quincy defended the British soldiers in court and won acquittal for all but two. The guilty were branded on their thumbs and set free. Britain yanked the rest of the British regulars out of Boston and things got better for awhile. The tea party and Concord/Lexington wouldn't happen for a few more years.
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