Paul Revere's Persuasion Massacre And The Boston Massacre

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Soon after the French and Indian war, the British parliament started to enforce taxes on the colonies in America to pay off their huge war debt. The colonists were not used to having to pay taxes so oppositions occurred. The British passed many laws such as the Proclamation of 1763, the Stamp act, the Sugar act, the Townshend act, the Stamp act, and the Quartering act. Colonists reacted to this by protesting. On March 5, 1770, one of the protests ended in a bloody shooting. Based on the evidence given by history, there was a massacre in Boston on March 5, 1770. First, Paul Revere’s drawing, John Bufford’s drawing, Benjamin Edes’s paper, and Captain Thomas’s case all show that only colonists were shot, wounded, and even dead after the event. …show more content…
According to Paul Revere’s paining of “The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston…,” and John Bufford’s print of the “The Boston Massacre…,” there are a few colonists in both pictures that dead and lying on the ground. In the print by Paul Revere, there are even colonists with a huge puddle of blood in front of them. In the writing by Benjamin Edes, he tells that three people were dead and two more were struggling for death. Lastly, in Captain Preston's writing, he tells that there were four dead colonists and counting. A massacre is an indiscriminate slaughter of people . This is a perfect example of a massacre because only colonists were killed and the shooting happened just because of a snowball …show more content…
Every single one of the four documents are valuable to developing the claim. First, the print by Paul Revere is a somewhat reliable source of evidence although he is biased since he is a patriot. His purpose was to spread anti-Britain propaganda. Next, the print by John Bufford is not very reliable because his drawing was made almost a hundred years after the massacre with a different purpose. His purpose was to depict Crispus Attucks and spread abolitionism for the civil war. The writing by Benjamin Edes is a somewhat reliable source since he was alive during the time period when the killing happened. Edes was a patriot so he may have been bias, making him a bit untrustworthy. His purpose was to spread anti-Britain propaganda as well. Finally, Captain Preston’s case writing is not very reliable because he is biased in supporting the British, and especially because he was the commander for the murdering soldiers. Although all of these documents are not completely reliable, they are still important pieces of evidence. All of these documents corroborate to make the final answer that there was a massacre on March 5,