BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Agile): Boston Massacre 250th

DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Agile): Boston Massacre 250th:

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1. LCBOST_200310_06.JPG: The 250th anniversary Boston Massacre Britain was left with enormous war debts following the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763. Throughout the 1760s and early 1770s, Parliament passed various acts (Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, and Tea Act) to raise money from the colonies to ease the debt burden. The colonists, who had enjoyed considerable self-governance up to that point, chaffed under what they saw as an assault on their civil liberties. On the night of Monday, March 5, 1770, a local mob in Boston, marching on the Customs House, was fired upon by a detachment of British troops who were being verbally and physically abused by the Americans. The patriots, led by Samuel Adams, labeled the affray the "Boston Massacre" and hailed its five victims as martyrs for liberty. This year marks the 250th anniversary of an event that was a flashpoint leading to the coming Revolutionary War.
2. LCBOST_200310_10.JPG: Setting the Stage This map, first published in 1722, captures the density of pre-Revolutionary Boston. The map continued to be updated and this edition from 179 was published after British troops began to occupy the city and one year before the infamous Boston Massacre occurred. Boston was the third largest port in the colonies after Philadelphia and New York. Trade import taxes imposed by Great Britain, along with the presence of British troops, set the stage for an explosive encounter ready to ignite with provocation. The fateful encounter between the British soldiers and citizens of Boston happened on King Street (now State Street) outside of today's Old State House (shown on this reproduction) on Monday, March 5, 1770. A report at the time recounted: "Tuesday morning presented a most shocking scene, the blood of our fellow-citizens running like water thro' King-street, and the Merchant's Exchange, the principal spot of the military parade for about 18 months past." William Price. A New Plan of Ye Great Town of Boston in New England in America, with the Many Additionall Buildings, & New Streets, to the Year 1769. Boston, 1769.
3. LCBOST_200310_23.JPG: Soldiers on Trial British troops were sent to Boston in late 1768 to support the civil authorities and were themselves subject to the jurisdiction of the local courts. All eight soldiers involved in the Massacre were jailed and tried for murder. Although public opinion called for an almost immediate adjudication, Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson pushed the first trial to the fall. The soldiers were defended by John Adams, who later became the second President of the United States, and all were acquitted of first degree murder on grounds of self-mob rule had been maintained in Boston, and that even the hated redcoats could receive a fair trial. The Trial of William Wemms... for the Murder of Crispus Attucks... Boston: J. Fleeming, 1770.
4. LCBOST_200310_36.JPG: The 250th anniversary Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre became a symbol of British tyranny and an important stepping stone on the road to rebellion. Shortly after the skirmish, the Boston Evening-Post published an ode to the victims, attributed to African American poet Phillis Wheatley, who lived a short distance from the clash. March 5th became a day of mourning in Boston through the end of the Revolutionary War. In her play The Adulateur, historian, poet, and playwright, Mercy Otis Warren predicted that revolution "May soon arrive, when murders, blood and carnage / Shall crimson all these streets." Crispus Attucks, killed in the attack, became an early hero of the American Revolution and an enduring symbol of liberty for African Americans. From its early use as a flashpoint for revolution, the Boston Massacre endures an event inextricably linked to American independence. All items on display are reproduced from the collections of the Library of Congress.
5. LCBOST_200310_40.JPG: Demand for Removal On Tuesday, March 6, 1770, Boston inhabitants gathered at Faneuil Hall and elected a committee of townspeople who issued the statement: "THAT it is the unanimous opinion of this meeting that the inhabitants and soldiery can no longer live together in safety; that nothing can rationally be expected to restore the peace of the town and prevent further blood and carnage, but the immediate removal of the troops...." The page depicts the coffins of Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Crispus Attucks -- each identified with their initials. The fifth victim, Patrick Carr, died two days after the publication of his broadside. An account of a Late Military Massacre at Boston, or the Consequences of Quartering Troops in a Populous Town. BOSTON March 12, 1770. New York: John Holt, 1770. Broadside.
6. LCBOST_200310_53.JPG: The Boston Massacre In this highly sensational depiction engraved by Paul Revere, a leading member of the Sons of Liberty, British troops acting under the orders of a British officer fire on unarmed citizens and sailors who were taunting them. Five Americans, including Crispus Attucks -- a runaway African American slave turned sailor -- died in the skirmish. Revere's engraving was derived from the work of Henry Pelham, an artist and engraver who harbored strong Loyalist sympathies. Paul Revere, The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a Party of the 29th Regt. Boston, 1770.
7. LCBOST_200310_64.JPG: Inflaming American Sentiments The American revolutionary cause was promoted by imaginative dramas written by Marcy Otis Warren, the most prominent American woman writer and playwright of the revolutionary era. The Adulateur initially was published as a series of satirical sketches in the spring of 1772 in the Massachusetts Spy, a Boston newspaper. The paper was later expanded and published in this pamphlet form. Central to Warren's political satire is the struggle between the villain Rapatio (Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson) and Brutus (Mercy's brother and radical pamphleteer James Otis) set in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre. Mercy Otis Warren, The Adulatuer. A Tragedy... Boston, 1773
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2020 photos: Well, that was a year, wasn't it? The COVID-19 pandemic cut off most events here in DC after March 11. The child president's handling of the pandemic was a series of disastrous missteps and lies, encouraging his minions to not wear masks and dramatically increasing infections and deaths here.The BLM protests started in June, made all the worse by the child president's inability to have any empathy for anyone other than himself. Then of course he tried to steal the election in November. What a year! Trips: Because of COVID, the farthest distance I traveled after that was about 40 miles. I only visited sites in four states -- Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and DC -- and didn't do any overnight travel anywhere. That was the least amount of travel I had done since 1995. Equipment this year: I continued to use my Fuji XS-1 cameras but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: about 246,000, the fewest number of photos I had taken in any year since 2007.
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