March 5th marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, when a party of British soldiers fired into a crowd of civilians, killing five. It was a terrible personal tragedy in a small town of 15,000 residents, and it almost immediately became politicized. Nat Sheidley, the president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces, is going to remind us what happened on that terrible night, how tightly intertwined the lives of the soldiers and town residents were at the time, and how every generation reinterprets what the tragedy means.
Remembering the Boston Massacre
This week’s podcast is sponsored by Liberty & Co, who sell unique products inspired by the American Revolution. In honor of the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, they’re introducing a new offering in their Candles of the Revolution series. The Bloody Boston Massacre Candle smells like musket fire, and it’s molded into a skull-shaped glass jar. If candles aren’t your thing, you select a range of Bloody Boston Massacre products, which bear the design of four coffins that was originally created by Paul Revere to remember the victims of the massacre. Or you can opt for a coffee mug bearing the likeness of John Adams and the phrase “facts are stubborn things,” which Adams made famous as part of his defense of the redcoats against murder charges. Save 20% on any purchase with the discount code HUBHISTORY.
- Check out the press release announcing the creation of Revolutionary Spaces.
- Henry Pelham’s portrayal of the Massacre and Paul Revere’s ripoff.
- Paul Revere’s sketch map of the Massacre site, showing where each body fell, and his design of four coffins.
Boston Book Club
During this week’s interview, Nat Sheidley pointed out how completely shocking the violence of the Boston Massacre would have been in a small town of 15,000 residents. Not only did everyone in town know one another, but by early 1770, they all knew the occupying British soldiers, as well. After about 18 months of living side by side, the locals and the redcoats were tied together by commercial relationships, friendships, romances, and more. In describing these connections, Nat recommended the book The Boston Massacre: a Family History, by Serena Zabin, which was published just a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but based on Nat’s recommendation and the buzz I’ve seen on Twitter, it sounds like a fascinating read. Here’s the publisher’s description:
The story of the Boston Massacre—when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot five local men to death—is familiar to generations. But from the very beginning, many accounts have obscured a fascinating truth: the Massacre arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political.
Professor Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 1768 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists. And she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and children who accompanied these armies. We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs and and sharing baptisms. Becoming, in other words, neighbors. When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human, now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution.
Upcoming Event
Revolutionary Spaces has an entire year of programming built around the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Starting this week, there will be living history events, theatrical productions, public art, and more. Gather at Old South Meeting House on Thursday, March 5th to mark the anniversary with modern interpretations of the Massacre orations by prominent Boston personalities. Then on Saturday, there will be a full day of events at Old South Meeting House, the Old State House, and the streets in between, culminating with a recreation of the massacre. A week after the anniversary, return to Old South Meeting House on March 12 to see a costumed actor recreate Joseph Warren’s famous 1775 Boston Massacre oration. And watch the Revolutionary Spaces website for more events as they’re announced throughout the year.
Transcript
Music
Jake Intro-Outro:
[0:04] Welcome Toe Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The Hub of the Universe.
This is Episode 1 74 Remembering the Boston Massacre Hi, I’m Jake.
This week marks the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre, and I’m gonna sit down with Natshe idly the president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces, to talk about it.
[0:30] On the evening of March 5th, 17 70 a party of British soldiers, representatives of law and order fired into a crowd of civilians, killing five.
[0:40] It was a terrible, deeply personal tragedy in a small town of 15,000 residents, and it almost immediately became politicized.
[0:49] Net is gonna remind us what happened on that terrible night, how tightly intertwined the lives of the soldiers in town residents were and how every generation reinterprets what the tragedy means.
[1:01] But before we talk about the anniversary of the bloody massacre on King Street, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.
[1:12] We’re relying on our special guest for both our book and event this week.
In the middle of my interview with that shyly, he points out how completely shocking the violence of the Boston massacre would have been in such a small town.
Not only did everyone in town know one another, but by early 17 70 they all knew the occupying British soldiers as well.
After about 18 months of living side by side, the locals and the red coats were tied together by commercial relationships, friendships, romances and Maur.
[1:42] In describing these connections, not recommends the book, The Boston Massacre.
A Family History by Serena’s Eben, which has just published a couple of weeks ago.
I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but based on NASA’s recommendation and the buzz have seen on Twitter, it sounds like a fascinating read.
Here’s the publishers description, the story of the Boston Massacre when on a late winter evening in 17 70 British soldiers shot five local men to death.
It’s familiar to generations, but from the very beginning, many accounts of obscured a fascinating truth.
The massacre arose from conflicts there were as personal as they were.
Political professor Serena’s Ayman draws on original sources, and lively stories to follow British troops is there, dispatched from Ireland to Boston in 17 68 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonists.
And she reveals a for gotten world hidden in plain sight. The many regimental wives and Children who accompanied these armies.
We see these families jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs and sharing baptisms, becoming, in other words, neighbors.
[2:57] When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was thes, intensely human, now broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American revolution.
[3:08] We’ll have a link to purchase the book in this week’s show. Notes at Hub history dot com slash 174 and for upcoming event This week, we’re featuring the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre.
[3:22] There will be a special event on March 5th, the actual anniversary, as well as a full day of programming on Saturday, March 7th.
Not only that, but revolutionary spaces, we basing entire year’s worth of programming around the anniversary as well.
Toe learn more. You’re gonna have to be patient and stay tuned. That will give you all the details toward the end of our conversation.
[3:45] But before we hear from not shied Lee, it’s time for a word from the sponsor of this week’s podcast.
Liberty and Co. Sells unique products inspired by the American Revolution, many of which have themes tied to the historical events, locations and people of Boston’s past, including the bloody massacre on King Street.
[4:05] One of the unique products that Liberty and Co offers is an exclusive candles of the revolution, Siri’s and they’re introducing a new candle just in time for the 250th anniversary of the massacre.
The bloody Boston massacre Candle will smell like musket fire, and it’ll be molded into a skull shaped glass jar.
[4:25] Experts say that the sense of smell is closely tied to memory.
So imagine remembering the Boston massacre with this unique new offering.
[4:35] If candles aren’t your thing, you can also get a bloody Boston Massacre T shirt, which bears a design of four coffins that was originally created by Paul Revere to remember the victims of the massacre.
Or you could opt for a coffee mug bearing the likeness of John Adams.
And the phrase facts are stubborn things, which Adams made famous is part of his defense of the red coats against murder charges.
[4:59] Whichever massacre merch strikes your fancy, you can get 20% off of any order and help support the show when you shop at Liberty and dot CEO and use the discount code Hub History.
A check out that’s L I B E r T y a nd dot CEO and use the discount code Hub history.
[5:21] And now it’s time for this week’s main topic. Revolutionary Spaces is a brand new organization that came storming into the Boston history seen last month,
formed out of an administrative merger between Old South Meeting House and the Old Statehouse.
This new organization is taking on a mission beyond what either site could do alone.
[5:41] The founding president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces is not shyly, and he’s joining us today to talk about the new organization, the Boston massacre and the meaning that the 250th anniversary of the massacre holds in today’s Boston.
[5:57] Not shy ble. Welcome to the show.
Nat:
[5:59] Hi. Thanks for having me.
Jake Interview:
[6:01] We’ve invited you here, at least in part, to talk about the new organization that you’re heading up here in Boston.
That comes from a merger between two very long time Boston history staples so that the new organizations called revolutionary spaces.
He tell us a little bit about what that organization is going to do and where the idea of this merger came from.
Nat:
[6:25] Sure. Yeah. Revolutionary Spaces is a brand new organization on the Boston cultural landscape.
It came to life on January 1st of this year, and it’s formed through the merger of the Bostonian Society, which was founded back in 18 81 to care for the Old State House and to preserve it from destruction,
and Old South Association in Boston, which was formed a few years before the Bostonian Society to preserve Old South Meeting House.
So both of those organizations had been in existence for a very long time.
Mom had devoted themselves in very constructive ways to preserving thes, incredibly important historic sites that link our city to our past,
Um, and that are visited by hundreds of thousands of visitors coming to Boston each year.
But the merger came about as the result of a conversation about what the deep stories are that live in the buildings.
And, you know, the buildings have significance for many periods of American history, but their most significant for the role that they played in the American Revolution and the two buildings really.
[7:33] Each contain a story that is only partly contained within their walls.
And could be better told by including the story of its partner just two blocks away, down Washington Street.
So the Old State House, where the townhouse, as it was called at the time of the revolution, was the seat of formal politics.
The seat of provincial government it had begun in 17 13 is the place also where the town meeting happened, but that had moved out to Faneuil Hall.
But it was the place where the elected representatives of the towns of Massachusetts gathered, where the royally appointed governor met with the provincial council s. So it was the seat of formal politics.
And during the revolutionary period, the people who had office who did their work in that building had constantly to grapple with the folks they were in some way trying to represent.
I mean, think of the American Revolution as a long conversation about the nature of representation.
[8:34] And so the people out of doors, as it was often termed in the 18th century, were of vital significance to what happened in the townhouse,
and the people out of doors gathered in many places and Old South.
Meeting house was an incredibly significant gathering place for many reasons, but in part because it was the largest indoor space in all of Boston.
So when the town, um, couldn’t fit in Faneuil Hall because there was a meeting of such importance that so many people wanted to turn up,
they always went to Old South meeting house to gather So many of the most significant political gatherings that the folks in the town house were trying to respond to were happening just down the street.
[9:24] And, you know, to the extent that we felt like the most precious resource, either organization had waas this deep story about,
the genesis of some of our most important American ideals and questions.
We felt like we could tell the story better. We’d have more powerful resource if we could tell it together. If we could create one seamless visitor experience spanning the two sites.
Jake Interview:
[9:54] The interpretation at each of the two sites right now is very different.
The Old South seems very much focus on sort of the freedom of speech. The open forum aspect of their history and the Old State House focuses more on revolutionary history.
How much of that experience of the museum guest will change with this merger?
Nat:
[10:18] So yes, you’re right about that. And I think there’s other differences as well and be one of the things that struck us when we started looking at this at the board level and at the staff level was,
that both organizations had built strengths that were complimentary rather than duplicative.
So Old South had invested a lot in really engaging evening programming and lectures that would draw local audiences in tow.
Have interesting conversations about current issues and their relationship to the past.
And a TTE the Old State House we had invested in the the,
experience that visitors had during the daytime hours when folks walking the Freedom Trail stepped in off the trail and said, Well, what can I do in here?
And you know, every day, 13 or 14 programs are happening tours and plays and exhibits and on that sort of thing. So it felt like, you know, just it on.
At the level of the nature of the programming, there was a great synergy.
But back to your question about the different frame for interpretation.
[11:30] What I would say is this I think the the commitment to the free speech mission is part and parcel of the commitment that revolutionary spaces has,
um, in the way with the approach, um, the public history work.
So this is public history work. The organization will be doing public history work that is on Lee, partly about helping people understand the past better the revolutionary period or other eras in American history.
It’s really about using the past to give people a better and deeper understanding of the present.
And Thio provide our audiences with a new set of tools that they might take in hand to do the work of building a better amore Justin. More equitable future for our city and for our country.
And I think you know the world. What is the work? What is the nature of that work?
It’s really about engaging people with the ongoing work of our democracy.
So that story I was alluding to before that spans the two sites the tension between the formal work of politics and the popular politics that happened to the two different sites.
That really adds up to a story of the genesis of a set of questions that were vital to the revolutionary moment but that continue to define our public life today.
[12:55] So those questions, they’re about representation, but not in the like.
I’m sitting in my high school civics class, and I’m kind of getting bored here cause I know all about the three branches or whatever it’s not.
It’s not just that it’s fundamental questions that animate us every day, Right? Who speaks for me?
How is my voice going to be heard? What is my recourse if my voice is silenced, right, and this bumps up against the free speech issue, right?
That’s one of the rights that we have, and it’s what we count on people in this democracy to do is to use their right to speak.
But most fundamentally, we have an idea that where we live in a representative democracy and our founding documents say we, the people.
But we don’t really have a standing agreed upon answer to who belongs to that circle of we right?
So the way I sometimes talk about this, I find it helpful to say that the revolutionary generation gave us a set of questions and yes, they gave us their answers.
But I think it’s really important that we understand that the answers for that era were sharply contested and pleased some and really angered others.
But it’s really the work of of our.
[14:17] It’s the work of people today to revisit those questions and to define the answers for our own time. And every generation of Americans have done that.
Um, so you know, what we really want to do is,
is design deeply engaging programming, thought provoking programming programming that uses contemporary lenses to open up the past in surprising ways,
in order to bring people together to continue the work of talking about what we mean when we say we, the people.
And I hope to do that in a way that makes a lot of people from all backgrounds all across our increasingly diverse city feel welcome in the conversation, feel like that mistake in the conversation and feel like the story that flows out of these buildings?
Is there a story too on? And I think if we could do that, we can really play a role in turning the corner in Boston on dhe and really embracing the growing diversity of our city in the region.
Jake Interview:
[15:15] Before we delve too deeply into what happened on the night of March 5th, 17 70 how that events remembered across American history.
Can you just remind our listeners what happened to lead up to the event we remember as the Boston Massacre?
Nat:
[15:32] Yeah, sure, I’d be happy to. And you know, the old history professor in me wants to know. How far out should I zoom here?
I I think sometimes it’s useful just to remind folks of the sweep of the growing crisis.
Right. So if we go back to 17. 63 a. T end of the seven years war the colonies in North America had fought for the empire in this global conflict against France.
Britain had one that conflict France had surrendered all of its territory in the eastern half of North America.
And you have to if you if you if you can’t really grasp what a pivotal moment that felt like and how fantastic that was.
You can’t really understand how surprising it was that just seven years later, in 17 70 civilians are being gunned down by by red coats in in King Street in Boston.
And think about, you know, at the end of the Cold War, the incredible.
[16:38] Outpouring of joy that we experienced in many corners of this country, right after a decades long struggle that felt like it would never end.
Suddenly there is an end to this thing that is defined our world and has constrained us. And, boy, are we gonna have a future that feels like it’s defined by peace and prosperity. For all right, the sky is the limit.
That’s what it felt like in Boston in 17 63 right? We’ve been sending men off the bleed in these wars for more than a century, and it’s over.
And the world is safe for trade and for prosperity.
And we’re gonna grow within the British Empire. And if you stepped outside the town house into the very square where blood would be spilled on March 5th, 17 70,
ask people, you know, what does it feel like to be a breeder subject? Are you happy?
People would have said how deeply proud they were, and if you’d asked them why, they would have said because to be a Briton is to be among the freest people on earth, right?
[17:45] And that is that incredible excitement about being part of a growing British empire and Boston’s place in that growing empire was shattered,
in a very short period of time, so that, you know, from the balcony of the Old State House in July of 17 76 folks at Reading the Declaration of Independence, and it shattered really by three hammer blows.
And one of them is the stamp act crisis that comes in 17 65 when parliament tries to impose an internal tax on the North American colonies and people basically freak out.
Then that crisis is resolved, and the second hammer blow is a Siri’s.
A new series of taxes passed in 17 67 68.
Um, and that’s the immediate context for what will deliver us to the Boston Massacre.
And before I go down that road, the third Hammer blow is really,
it’s the destruction of the T in Boston Harbor and the British response to that, especially the Massachusetts Government Act,
and the the pathway toe war, which comes right after so those we just think of it as three acts in this drama and we’re in the middle act,
Yes. So act to, um is it’s really provoked by a series of taxes that very.
[19:11] Uh, somebody without great marketing sensibility decided to call the towns and duties because they were named for Charles Townsend, the chancellor of the Exchequer.
And they’re really a series of import duties, right? So the colonists in the first round are in the argument over the stamp act and said, Well, we agree that you can regulate trade because that’s the nature of the Empire.
But you just can’t impose internal taxes. So in 17 67 Parliament turns around, says Great, You said we can regulate trade. So here’s a whole set of duties on trade.
[19:44] Um, and you know, they’re definitely gunning for Boston, which had demonstrated itself to be at the forefront of protest on dhe.
We know that they’re gunning for Boston, and everyone in Boston knew that because they created a new customs service in order to enforce the trade duties and think of the North American seaboard.
They stationed the entire Customs Service in Boston, which is not exactly in the center right. So they’re sending a message like, Okay, Boston, we mean taxes for everyone, but we especially mean it for you.
And, you know, if you were in Boston, you didn’t much like that, right?
Like Okay, well, you’re trying to pick a fight with us. And so game on.
Right? So, Bostonian stick. But they tend to do. They found all sorts of creative ways to say no.
[20:32] What it worked in the Stamp Act era had been essentially to nullify the enforcement of the act, right? Just make it impossible to enforce the thing easy with the stamp act. There was one guy in the entire colony whose job it was to enforce the stamp act.
You just intimidate the heck out of that person. He resigns.
Nobody wants to take the job. It’s a dead letter. Done a lot harder with these duties.
But there are things that people could do. One thing that that folks wanted to do was essentially boycott.
There was no word called boycotting it at that time, but they the merchants in town agreed there was a merchant’s association and they agreed to adopt a set of non importation agreements. Everybody voluntarily signed on.
[21:16] Um uh, we’re not everybody, but many merchants voluntarily signed on to not importing luxury goods from from England from the British Isles and letting their displeasure be known.
In that way, we don’t realize what a stunning thing this would have been and how disruptive to daily life it might have been,
until we think about the fact that in Boston, a town of 15,000 people, there were in 17 68 when these things went into force about 500 retail businesses.
[21:52] So I once did this math that that’s actually the number of shops in the Mall of America in Minneapolis, right? So, like the greatest mom in America.
500 shops in a little town of 15,000 people and everyone selling stuff, right? So people were making money by buying stuff that people didn’t want to make for themselves and didn’t have to anymore.
Nice fabric, soap, candles. Last I mean everything that you could want.
[22:19] Somebody was bringing in on a ship. And then it was being resold at like, you know, I might have ah, cobbler shop and I make shoes.
But I’m also selling tea over here cause you know, I could make a little extra on the side.
So, boy, to put in place these non importation agreements threatened people’s livelihoods at a really fundamental level.
And some shopkeepers really didn’t want to do it and in fact, couldn’t do it without going out of business and losing their own economic independence.
[22:49] So what you gonna do that non importation agreements only work if they’re universal?
So folks in town organized to picket outside of the shops that were not abiding by the non importation agreements.
And I’m pointing that out because we tend to read back from the period of the war that this is some kind of binary struggle between them the good guys on one side and the British on the other than the bad guys.
But actually, you know, a lot of the struggle Waas colonists pitted against each other, right? So that was one track was the like.
We’ve gotto enforce these non importation agreements. And then there was a much more confrontational track which waas in the streets on and usually targeted at the customs officers.
So my favorite episode related to this comes in the summer of 17 68 when there’s a British naval vessel in town.
[23:53] The Romney, actually that in pounds, one of John Hancocks ships a slope called the Liberty on suspicion of having carried smuggled goods. Right.
[24:06] Hancock was pretty clearly a smuggler. And he hey, was running Madeira in in these giant casks called pipes,
and then offloading them it night before he officially reported into the Harbor Master and then showing up like, Hey, I’ve got an empty ship.
Can I offload the three tiny chest that are still in here?
And the customs officers were like, Yeah, right. Okay, we don’t believe that.
And at one point, they impound his his ship, the liberty, and, you know, at this point.
Hancocks beloved in town for many reasons, but he’s funding the protest movement.
He’s inclined to, you know, like just haul off an EMP, an open casks of Madeira on the common and tell people, Come on, have what you want. Or like, we’re gonna have a pig, Rose. And he was ingratiating himself to the crowd.
So the crowd turns out to defend Hancocks, ship and and toe let their displeasure of the customs officers be known.
And they unfortunately, they find out that the ship has been lashed to the Romney, which is a gigantic British naval vessel, and they’re like, we’re not gonna be able to row out there and do anything about it.
[25:15] So now they’re really angry, and they find their way to a Worf, where one of the Customs officers has what’s described in the records as a pleasure vessel.
It’s a small sailing ship, but, you know, small sailing ship is big.
[25:31] They haul it out of the water, they take the darn thing out of the water there, carry it more than a mile overland to the Liberty tree.
Right, Which is no pretty far down. Like it’s the edge of Chinatown today, right where Washington Street in Essex Street intersect.
And they try it under the Liberty Tree for crimes against the country, and they find it guilty.
And then, you know, in the great Boston tradition, what are you gonna do after you found the ship guilty? Well, you’re gonna burn it.
[26:01] So they take it to the common and they disassemble it, stave by stave, and then they burn it a giant bomb fire.
And then they go over old south meeting house to have a conversation about how fantastic that waas what they’re going to do next.
And, you know, over in the townhouse, the governor and the elite men who sit on the counts are like pulling their hair out.
What are we gonna do? This is a lawless town. What are we gonna do?
And so that’s the second track, right? You’ve got the non importation agreements.
You’ve got the like, we’re taking it right to the customs officers and destroying their property. Let him know how, how angry we are.
And then the third track, waas were fomenting inter colonial cooperation, Right?
So in the stamp Act crisis in 17 65 Massachusetts had called for, uh, joint ah, joint Congress of the colonies to talk about how to coordinate their resistance the stamp act.
So this time the assembly in Massachusetts, the.
[27:05] House of Representatives it was called the lower house of the Great in General Court sends a circulator circular letter out to all the other colonies saying, Hey, we don’t much like these towns and do these things, and we don’t think you do either.
So we ought to be watchful and vigilant and share information and coordinate on how to resist and back in England.
Um, you know, they’re they’re livid, right?
The ministry can’t believe that this is happening and they send instructions to the governor.
They say, OK, any of you who are gonna allow your assemblies to accept the circular letter are gonna be in big trouble.
We’re gonna ask you to dissolve those assemblies and hey in Massachusetts Governor Bernard.
[27:49] Tell them to rescind it and if they don’t probe the Assembly and tell them there’s no elected representatives in this year. Sorry.
And in Massachusetts they refuse. They vote by a vote of 92 to 17 to refuse to rescind the circular letter.
And now Bernard Scott, his tail between his legs and I go great. I gotta dissolve this thing. And I know I’m gonna make everybody angry.
And so he’s secretly writing off to the ministry suggesting that boy, this is really a lawless town and it would be so helpful if we had the army here to make it a town of law and order again.
So, you know, that’s a long wind up to say in the ministry.
They are starting to think about how to use the army as a police force.
And in October of 17 68 they sent four regiments of the British Army into Boston.
Jake Interview:
[28:48] Beckon episode 100 of our show Jail Bell local historian joined us and talked a little bit about the occupation that started in 17.
Follow 17 68 and what that meant for the town of Boston.
And part of what led to is just this increasing Siri’s of conflict.
You have these young men, locals and red coats just bumping into each other in the streets all these different ways. So how did this sudden influx of regular troops in Boston sort of up the tension instead of defusing it?
Nat:
[29:21] I mean, I think we’ve We’ve learned this lesson over and over again in the 20th and 21st century is right.
Armies don’t make great peacekeeping forces.
They are not great.
Um, it keeping a town occupied by the army is not necessarily the best way to make everybody calm down.
Um and e. I mean, the first thing we have to do is get a sense of the scale, right? So four regiments in the British army and they don’t all stay, but at the beginning, for regimens, it’s like 4000 soldiers.
Remember, it’s a town of 15,000 people, right? So if we gathered, you know what we gathered?
Um, if we gathered 15 people, we’d have to add four soldiers alongside us, and we’d have a full group, right?
I mean, that’s like, everywhere you went, there were there were soldiers, they were just there were huge numbers of them.
[30:17] And I think, um, I think it’s true that they caused a tremendous amount of friction, but I think it’s also important for us to recognize that at a day to day level, there were a whole lot of things going on.
Serena’s Eben, who’s a historian out at Carlton College who is has just published a book about the Boston massacre.
Jake Interview:
[30:41] Is that a family history of the Boston Massacre? I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
Nat:
[30:44] Yeah, yeah, her research. It’s a fantastic book, and she’s been working on it for a while.
And she’s She’s gone down to the records, to the individual regimens and the records of individual soldiers.
And and by recovering all the names, she has been able to go into the town records, the marriage records, the baptismal records, the tax records where, uh,
individuals aren’t necessarily identified as soldiers.
But she’s now able to say, Oh, that marriage is between a young woman off Boston and a British soldier who’s arrived as part of a CZ of this peacekeeping force, right?
So So, yes, they’re they’re generating tension. But they’re also marrying into the town, starting families, becoming part of small town life.
And they’re stitching together in the way that British forces do wherever they’re stationed around the empire. They’re making ah, home for themselves in this place.
So, you know, I’m a now. Yeah.
Jake Interview:
[31:50] Thing I’ve read is that that sense of settling in could actually have a double edged could be a double edged sword. Because British soldiers could often have jobs on the side, they could go and work for cash.
And in a town like Boston that was already struggling somewhat under the Townsend acts, they had a second salary as a member of the military, so they could often undercut local laborers for for some forms of work.
So they’re settling in making lives for themselves.
Some elements of that then put them in further conflict with the locals. It seems like.
Nat:
[32:24] Yeah, I think that’s right. There’s definitely economic competition, especially at the bottom of the wage scale for unskilled jobs, especially on the rope walks and other places on Dhe.
And that’s part of the story of how things come to a head in March of 17 70.
But I wanted to make sure I mentioned the the sort of stitching together that’s happening, too, because I think,
it helps us to understand the incredible emotional impact of that episode of violence that happens unexpectedly on the night of March 5th, 17 70.
I mean, we just have to remember in the town of 15,000 every single person heard about it quickly and knew somebody who was lying in the street that night.
But we also forget that almost everybody knew someone who’d fired a weapon and who was on the other side of the conflict and felt connected to them through bonds of business or friendship or marriage.
So, you know, it’s it’s an Internet sign struggle, and it’s incredibly powerful when it happens.
And so there’s just this ripping apart that happens in the aftermath of that episode of violence that I don’t think intel Serena’s book.
We’ve really fully come to terms with.
Jake Interview:
[33:43] We’ll definitely have to check out the book that a family history of the Boston Massacre Maybe we’ll have to make that our bust in Book club pick this week.
So you mentioned the conflict at the at the rope walk with roadblocks leading up to the events of March 5th.
And I feel like that’s part of sort of a sudden uptick in violent confrontations that happens right in the big beginning of 17 70 from,
ah, the death of Christopher Cider and February and then conflicts of the rope walks two weeks later, less than a week after that, or have the bloody massacre in King Street.
You have any sense of what caused this sudden increase in sort of violent confrontations between talents, folks and and red coats at that time?
Nat:
[34:33] It is just a series of events that are building on each other.
But I think you know the events that you’ve mentioned. Quite rightly, they bring together the increasing tension between townsfolk and the soldiers and the increasing tension among townsfolk themselves.
So at the very end of February, um, the the incident that culminates with the killing of Christopher cider and 11 year old boy.
It begins with, ah, a picket line outside one of the small shops that is in non compliance with those non importation agreements.
Um, the awful ISS lily in the North End is continuing to sell imported tea and other things.
[35:21] And some of the Sons of Liberty Liberty boys are gathered outside, picketing and shouting and making it extremely uncomfortable for any customer to go inside.
Jake Interview:
[35:32] And Lily’s not a British soldier. He’s not a kn officer of the Customs Service. He’s just a fellow Towns person in Boston who is trying to make a living.
Nat:
[35:44] That’s right. That’s right. Um, you know, he’s he’s increasingly become seen as a supporter of crown authority, and you know, there’s there’s deep political.
[35:55] Divides that mean some shopkeepers to be singled out more than others.
But But what happens in that incident is one of Lily’s neighbors, Ebony’s Air Richardson, who is a longtime informant for the Customs Service and very, um,
seen as a sort of suspicious figure by many,
who are in the wig movement,
comes out and tells the crowd to disperse, and they’re more than happy to relocate to his front door.
And now they’re standing outside Ebony’s Air Richardson’s house, and they’re throwing rocks through his windows and making him feel extremely, um, uncomfortable in on safe.
And he’s not one to back down. So he comes to the door and sticks a gun out and says, Get out of here, I’m gonna fire on you.
And he, in fact, pulls the trigger on dhe.
A musket ball rips through the face and chest of this 11 year old boy, right? Who?
Some guys later that night, and that tragedy written out.
Remember small town? Everybody here’s by word of mouth really quickly it’s it’s, you know, it’s an incredible tragedy.
And here’s a young person caught up in the charge political events of the time who gave his life way too soon.
[37:15] Who didn’t sign up for having a musket ball go through his chest and, um, when he’s buried not many days later, it is the you know, it’s the biggest funeral that Boston has seen.
There’s 2000 people turn out for what is you know, it’s It’s the for the the informal power structure that is constituting itself.
It’s like a state funeral, right? It’s the whole town participates in mourning him in a very official way.
So that’s part of the context and the residual anger over that right? Somebody associated with the Customs Service has killed one of our own, and this boy didn’t deserve it, and somebody’s gonna have to pay.
So now that’s hanging in the air on. And then, just a few days later, there’s this.
There’s this well publicized brawl at single Gray’s rope walk, where, you know, some of the British soldiers who are.
[38:14] You know, on their days off looking toe, make a little extra money by taking up day jobs come by and,
you know, they’re They’re asked if you know, do you Do you want a job on one of them says Yeah, and you know, one of the rope workers says, Well, great, then you can clean out my latrine and,
um, you know, they’re you know, they’re ribbing each other, but in a very aggressive way.
And, um and the soldiers come back with their buddies and then the rope workers come back with their buddies, and pretty soon there’s a giant fistfight and people get hot. People get hurt.
And some of those who will face off on the night of March 5th just two days later are folks who were, you know, beating each other in the face at that roadblock incident. So there’s definitely some bad blood that carries over.
[39:03] But you know, it’s it’s a It’s a year and 1/2 of living cheek by jowl too close together and beginning to get tired of the eggs.
Jake Interview:
[39:13] Yeah, the the massacre itself often almost gets lost in its own weight of history.
It’s easier to see from the rope walk brawls, I think how it’s almost just a family squabble, writ large or spun out of control where no, they’re working side by side, often the wrong thing, get said.
And then you have two sides, a huge crowd going after each other with cudgels they’re using for toe Pete Probe fibers with, and then two nights later, we sort of do the same thing with guns.
So I guess the massacre doesn’t come out of nowhere. When we set the stage a little bit.
What actually happened in King Street on the night of March 5th? Why was there a century at the townhouse in the first place? And then who was the crowd that started gathering there? And where did it all go wrong?
Nat:
[40:05] Yeah, there’s other people can tell this story in a much more dramatic way than I but, um, but, you know, it is a dramatic moment. S o.
I think it’s helpful. Thio. Just be mindful of the fact that the place where this happens is what passes for a town square in Boston.
It’s the It’s the place where, you know, two dozen times a year,
there’s a formal holiday that ends with somebody reading some sort of official proclamation or saying some sort of celebratory comments from the balcony of the townhouse.
Um, the town. This is a public space, the town square where people gather, um, right under the balcony of the Old State House and, uh, you know.
So there’s on a moonlit night in the middle of March when people are feeling cooped up from being inside with all of the cold weather and, you know, taking advantage of the opportunity to get out a little bit.
[41:07] There are people in the square and young,
actually not that young, but Hugh White, uh, Century is standing outside the Customs House, which is sort of Kitty Corner across the plaza from,
the Old State House on there’s a sentry box there, and there’s always someone stationed on duty.
There’s always back and forth between between the wigs and the soldiers, and they tend to heckle each other.
And, um, you know, one of the one of the people that’s in the square that night is a wig maker’s apprentice who starts.
[41:42] Who starts shouting at a passing officer and complaining that his commanding officer has not made good on his debt.
Thio to the wig maker to the apprentices master and is essentially questioning whether he’s good for it.
And you know he’s questioning the the honor of this gentleman, right?
So the soldier and hey, White doesn’t much like that, and he calls The Apprentice over to have a few words with him, and they.
[42:09] Have hot words, and Hugh White uses his musket toe push the apprentice away, who then turns around and runs to his friend and says, Did you see that I got smashed in the mouth by that musket?
Now you know, depending on the eyewitness, he was either, you know, smashed hard with the butt of the weapon, or he made a big deal out of nothing.
But, you know, here he is now say I’m hurt.
I’m hurt. Look at the blood. Oh, my God. And people start to gather, and okay, now there’s a bunch of people who want to take it to huge white, and, um, and they go and start, you know, talking to him, giving him, ah, their thoughts.
And now the started make a scene. And so the people passing through the square start to gather in numbers. And now you’ve got several dozen people, and at a certain point, someone has the idea.
And there are different theories around this. Maybe it was prearranged. Or maybe it was just a ny idea that came in the moment. But someone has the idea of going and ringing the bells.
Right? So this part of town that has churches everywhere and the town house itself has a bell.
[43:16] Someone starts pulling on a on a bell rope and tolling bell, which in Boston a town that is,
by 17 70 had had I don’t know, five or six great fires, right? There’s no my God.
That fire wasn’t anything like this one isn’t the great fire including a terrible fire in 17 60 that threaten the whole neighborhood where this event is happening, Right?
So Bostonians turnout when the bells ring in the middle of the night because that’s the signal that somebody’s gotta man the bucket brigade.
So now people are pouring out, trying to figure out what’s going on and what they don’t see a fire. But they see a crowd of people arguing with the soldier.
And now people are really pressing into the square, and it’s getting really tense.
And the guardhouse immediately adjacent to the townhouse sees this,
Theo officer on duty that night, Captain Thomas Preston decides to, uh, Thio make a foray out into the crowd with a detachment of soldiers.
So he picks the biggest, most in physically intimidating men. He confined because he knows they’re gonna be in for a little bit of a struggle.
[44:27] I think the fairest reading of the evidence from that night is that he explicitly does not have them load their weapons before they go out.
He takes them out. He puts them in a defensive semi circle between the crowd and the soldiers, and he’s standing. And this is very much different from the famous engraving done by by Paul Revere.
He’s he’s standing between the the soldiers.
And the crowd pleading with the crowd dispersed.
We don’t want any trouble. We want to move out of this space. We want to bring an end to this conflict.
But you know, the crowds picking up, you know, that horrible, melted and re frozen snow that you get in Boston by March and some of it’s got, like, frozen horse filth in it.
Or it’s got oyster shells and their lobbying things that the soldiers and they’re not dispersing.
And so what is Preston going to do? He keeps pleading with the minute a certain point, he says, Um, you know, I’m gonna ask the soldiers to load their weapons now. We really mean it.
And he has them all load.
[45:40] And now he’s got a really challenge on his hands because he’s actually prohibited from having those soldiers use violence by the riot Act literally, somebody had a town.
A civil official has to come and read the riot act to the town before the military can use force.
They have to declare it an unlawful assembly. And you can bet there’s not a single civil official in Boston in 17 70 who was going to read the riot, right?
So here’s press and now he’s got his men with charged weapons and the crowd’s getting even angrier.
And things just keep getting more and more tense until, you know there’s a group of sailors who push in at the very last moment and come right up and adopt an extremely confrontational attitude. And somebody’s musket goes off right?
So everybody’s yelling, Fire, fire, fire, right is not Preston who’s yelling fire!
But the crowd is yelling fire because of the bells and nobody can tell what’s going on and somebody’s weapon goes off.
And all the soldiers we, you know, you would guess and they recount assumed that somebody had given the order and they hadn’t heard it, and they all discharged.
[46:50] So there’s a volley of of nine musket balls that go off into the crowd, and they go through people.
So more than nine people are struck, but three fall dead almost immediately.
One’s wounded badly enough that he’s gonna die that night, and another will die a week or two later, of wounds sustained that evening.
So, um, you know, just a terrible moment that I don’t think anyone wanted or could have predicted.
Jake Interview:
[47:19] Almost a soon as the smoke clears that night, you start to have the battle for how that events going to be framed in the moment and then remembered for posterity.
I guess the question to me is, how Why do we remember the Boston Massacre as the Boston Massacre? And not as just another one of Boston’s many riots that got a little bit out of hand?
Nat:
[47:44] I think that’s a great question. But I want to put in a plea before I answer that question to just carve out a small moment for us to imagine what it felt like.
Um and and I mean this because I think I think our standard narrative of the massacre is How did it come to happen?
And then what were the political consequences of it, or the cultural consequences?
And what we forget is what the lived experience waas and this This hit me so profoundly in 2013,
when you know, in that horrible act of violence, the finish line of the Boston Marathon was bombed.
[48:30] And just remember, if you were in Boston at that time, what it felt like, um, you know.
And this is a town of hundreds of thousands of people now, not a town of 15,000.
But we were all knocked off kilter, and there was an incredible emotional dimension, right that there’s an outpouring of grief.
There was an outpouring of anchor and a fear, but most.
[48:57] I think prevalent waas this this sense of uncertainty, right?
What happened? How could that happen? And what does it mean and what’s gonna happen next? And there’s this We have that experience of living in that liminal space, right?
Okay, that act of violence put an end to the world I lived in yesterday and all the rules that I thought I knew.
And I know that we’re gonna construct a new world and a new set of rules, and there’s gonna be new guidelines,
but I don’t know what those are yet, and I’m living in this space and I’m feeling this space with reaching out to my neighbors and trying to connect with them.
I’m filling this space with my own feelings of fear and grief.
I’m I’m trying to figure out howto do something to help move the town forward and heal.
And I think we owe it to ourselves to see that moment in March of 17 70 as well, because Boston surely felt it.
And and I think the the much of the story of how the town remembers after is bound up with power of that moment, and and the political consequences are bound up with that moment too.
And we this fall in in October, we’re gonna bring back to the old state House of play,
called Blood on the Snow that tries to capture that feeling by looking at essentially one hour of real time in the council chamber.
[50:25] The day after the Boston massacre, while the governor, members of the council and representatives from the town are trying to figure out how to work together to ensure that doesn’t get worse.
And, you know, on that day, March 6th, there are rumors flying all around town that the country militias are gonna march on Boston and drive the soldiers out by force of arms.
And the town comes. The town holds a meeting in Faneuil Hall that grows so big they move over the old South meeting house,
and they send delegations over to speak with the governor, and they twice come to the governor and say you have to order the troops out.
[51:05] They have to leave town, or there’s gonna be blood running in the streets tonight at a scale you can’t imagine.
You know, we and we legitimately could have have the start of armed conflict in March of 17 70 the whole outcome would have been different, right?
You wouldn’t have had the strength of the Inter Colonial Union, um, that the Congress that comes later that helps to drive the American war effort.
What would have happened? It would have been a very different story, the governor says.
Governor Hutchinson is the hero of the moment Governor Hutchinson, who has spent his whole life trying to become governor.
And at this moment, he’s only acting governor, right? Cause the previous guy who was responsible for the troops coming to town sort of like I’m out of here.
I gotta go back and defend myself. People hate me in London and and I’m just leaving you all to your own devices.
So Hutchinson has just stepped in to become acting governor, and his whole life has been about getting to this place of power and doing something for Boston with it.
But here he is, and he knows I’m the civilian authority. I cannot order the troops out.
So he says the town Well, could you just give me two weeks?
I just need two weeks because I gotta write a note to General Gage who’s the commanding officer and he’s in New York and I got to get it down to New York, and then I gotta wait for his answer to come back.
So just sit tight and we’ll see what we can do. But I don’t have the authority.
[52:33] And the town basically says, You know that’s not good enough because we can’t be accountable for the way in which people might act on the anger that they feel and so get the troops out.
It’s the only way to restore order, and Hutchinson finds it in himself.
[52:52] To see a pathway to doing this, believing that in so doing he has given up his chance of becoming the rial.
Crown appointee is the governor. He thinks his political career is over, but he’s he wanted that job because he wanted to do.
It was right for Boston. He wanted to advance the interests of Massachusetts within the British Empire. And this is a moment where he really does the hard thing.
And and those that group of people who are antagonists, right?
The you know, some of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, the wig movement and the leaders of the governor’s party.
Basically the you know Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver and the people around him, they find a way together to make, to come together and make common cause.
They also, I think, learn lessons from that experience that make it impossible for them to find a solution after the destruction of the tea and 17 73.
So Hutchinson learns, Oh boy, don’t compromise because if you offer something they take, um they think much more than 10 times as much as you thought you gave up.
And so hold the line and the wigs learn, Oh, boy, if you just put pressure on Hutchinson, he’s gonna cave.
And the result of those two lessons learned is that they cannot find a way to resolve the crisis over the tea and 17 73.
But in 17 70 there’s this incredible moment.
[54:21] Where I think people rise to the the challenge that’s put before them by this horrible act of violence that nobody wanted and that is causing the entire town to re allow.
And they try their best to bandage up Boston and to bandage up the British Empire.
So, yes, the memory is important, but we don’t get it. If we miss that human piece, just what it felt like, what would it have felt like to have heard that news?
Jake Interview:
[54:52] Well, speaking of the human element, I guess one way to keep the focus on on that element of suggest introduces to who?
The victims of the massacre were. The 33 people die that immediately Another one that night and then the fifth, Um, within a week, I believe, within a couple of weeks.
So who who were the victims of the Boston massacre?
Nat:
[55:17] Well, I should have notes in front of me cause I’m gonna forget all of their names, but But I know,
some of them really stood out and are are are folks who who have been a Touchstone for memory over the long haul for Boston as well, you know.
So Christmas Addicts is the victim who’s probably best remembered today,
not necessarily because of the role he played in March of 17 70 although he played a very important role, but because of the place he occupies in our ongoing conversation is Americans about, um, about we the people, right?
So he was, ah, self liberated former slave of mixed African and Native American ancestry, as were many, many people in Massachusetts in,
of the 18th century and had made its way to see just like Benjamin Franklin when he didn’t like his apprenticeship in Boston.
Right, a time honored tradition of finding freedom on the waves.
Um, but he had, you know, he’d been in and out of Boston for for a couple of decades in a sailor and ah, rope maker and dock worker and whatnot.
Um, and, uh, by all eyewitness accounts, he is the first person to be fired upon.
Um, other victims included Patrick Car, who was notable to a later generation of Bostonians because of his Irish ancestry.
[56:46] Samuel Maverick, who was especially remarked upon at the time because he was just 17 years old when when he died. So.
Jake Interview:
[56:57] The second time in just a couple of weeks that essentially a child’s killed in Boston.
Nat:
[57:02] That’s right. That’s right. And then the fourth who dies within the day is the last name is great, but I’m gonna forget whether it was Samuel Grey or Lies there. So many graze.
Jake Interview:
[57:13] I think he’s also a Sam. You will, I will.
Nat:
[57:15] Yeah, but he wasn’t The rope is that people always confuse him with the guy who owned the rope walk where the fight had happened a few days earlier. And he’s not that one.
There’s there’s this incredibly poignant passage in,
the remembrance that Joseph Warren delivered in Old South meeting house five years later on the anniversary the Boston Massacre, where he asked the listener,
tow walk with him for just a moment in their memories and incredibly vivid detail.
Describes like Here’s the mother with the wailing child on her arm, looking at the spattered brains of the father who’s lying in the street.
[58:02] And you know that’s the raw power off that moment.
I mean it was a horrific act of violence. And we, you know, I often catch myself trying to say something like, we’re celebrating the 250th anniversary, the Boston Massacre.
But you wouldn’t do that with an act of violence like this.
That was much more proximate in time, like you wouldn’t celebrate 9 11,
You know, you wouldn’t celebrate the horrible act of violence that happened in Ferguson and Missouri and 2016 you like, We don’t do that.
And we only have the luxury of forgetting about your horrifying. This was at a human level because of 250 years, and we’ve made it part of our founding mythology.
But those were real people who had riel mothers and fathers and riel, wives and Children and and their lives were lost.
And, you know, we we should remember that when we remember the massacre.
Jake Interview:
[59:06] And even with that in mind, even their contemporaries began to politicized their memories immediately.
I think that the funerals could be seen as a political event in and of themselves.
They and the biggest funeral had happened just weeks before for Christopher cider. And now history repeats itself with these massive funerals for the first three victims were 1st 4 victims.
Nat:
[59:31] Yeah, that’s right. Um, they several bodies lie in state at Faneuil Hall for for a few days before the funerals, too, so everybody could come and see them and process,
that this thing happened, right?
That our own soldiers killed counts people in cold blood.
And, um, And then there is an even larger group funeral with all of the, you know, state honors that could be offered when you don’t actually control the machinery of state.
Um, and it is, you know, it’s definitely a propaganda event. It’s being leveraged by leaders of the wig movement in order to mobilize.
Jake Interview:
[1:00:14] Financed by them too, I think.
Nat:
[1:00:16] Yep. And it’s, you know, it’s being used to mobilize support for their cause.
There’s other things that are happening even more quickly. So as that, as people try to figure out what actually happened, they realized that they ought to get out and collect depositions from eye witnesses.
The governor and the Council are a little slow to realize the potential political use of those depositions, but the town is really fast.
They’re like out there collecting depositions, and then they like, within a really short period of time, they’ve got him all in print and bound and they’re sending copies off to England to shape everyone’s perception of what happened.
And, of course, all the eyewitness accounts that they collect or the ones that basically,
make it sound like the You know, the soldiers came out to wreak havoc and get even with the town and boy words their blood up and they were really wanting toe toe hurts, um, people.
And there’s even a few depositions that say there was an extra gun that came out a window of the Customs house behind the soldiers. And we know that’s the customs officers like that.
You know, we boy, we’ve been trying to get rid of the custom servicing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could pin this on them and they’d have to be disbanded and we’d be free of the deprivations of the darn customs officers?
[1:01:42] So there’s something very shrewd happening, and the crown’s sort of dopey and slow to,
on the uptake, and they, they later realize, Oh, right, we gotta collect some depositions that make it sound like the crowd was thehe Gresser.
And so they collect, you know, maybe 1/3 as many or 1/4 as many, but the number them sequentially along with metallic.
The town did 105 depositions and then 106 107 and so forth are the ones that the crown is collected and they just put them all together and say, like here, go figure out what you can do with that.
So, you know, people are working hard to shape how this is gonna be perceived outside of Boston. I mean, that it’s a done deal in terms of how the town seems it.
But how can you export your view of how horrifying this Waas without Twitter and without Facebook and without, you know, videos uploaded to YouTube you, it’s it was a lot harder.
Jake Interview:
[1:02:40] The next. The next best thing to some of those YouTube videos might be the imagery that’s getting created very soon after the massacre, with Henry, Pelham and Paul Revere even more famously,
creating these images that tell a certain version of what happened on King Street.
Nat:
[1:02:58] Yeah, poor Henry Pelham. He he did the image.
Jake Interview:
[1:03:02] Uh huh.
Nat:
[1:03:04] He did that like a painstakingly constructed version of this. That then Paul Revere.
Um e rips it off in graves.
Jake Interview:
[1:03:09] Pretty blatantly ripped off.
Nat:
[1:03:12] It and mass produce, is it? And that’s the one that everybody knows.
But, um, you know, So it’s worth thinking about the Revere one because it is the one that that most people at the time saw in that most of us today have seen, you know, and and Revere does some really shrewd things with that, right?
So he’s got he’s got, um, you know, all of the civilians are dressed in the clothes that you would expect genteel members of society to be wearing.
They’re not the motley rabble that really was there that night.
You know, there’s they’re they’re just good civilians going about their business.
And if you look, if you follow a line from where the crowd is from, where the civilians are straight up, there’s a steeple or the tower of the first church sort of back behind the townhouse,
of the townhouse is right in the middle, standing for the law, right?
The law is what separates the good folk from the lawless bad folk and over the soldiers, heads and the soldiers all look, you know, horribly gruesome and angry.
And, you know, Thomas Preston is not between the soldiers and the crowd.
Now he’s behind them and clearly saying, Fire it over them, Like waving his sword forward right over the soldiers heads is a sign that says Butchers Hall.
[1:04:32] And you know, there was no butchers Hall there, but that is a great way to let people know. Oh, these guys are butchers.
So it no, it it paints of really binary portrait on Do you know to come back to Serena’s book again? She actually starts the book with that image and asked us what’s missing, right? What’s missing is like that.
That image divides the town from the soldiers, when in fact it’s the massacre that divides the town from the soldiers.
But at the moment that that act of violence happened, they were deeply stitched together.
And I think you know, part of the emotional power of the event is that it’s your friends and loved ones firing on your friends and loved ones. Oh, my gosh.
Um, so, yeah, the Revere image begins to seal the perception outside of Boston and certainly has been a Touchstone for a long period. Here in Boston.
Jake Interview:
[1:05:30] And that’s not even the only imagery he creates. Reflecting the massacre. I think he was also the artist behind the images of the four coffins that appeared in the Massachusetts by. There you go.
Nat:
[1:05:41] It’s, I think it’s the Boston Gazette. Yeah, the issue that appears exactly one week, right?
So it’s a weekly paper, and it just happened that it had gone to press on the day that the shootings happened.
So the March 12th edition has four coffins with the with the names of the victims. He’s also, we think, he’s the artist who drew the,
There’s a sketch in the holdings of the Boston Public Library showing where the soldiers were standing, where the townhouse was, where the victims fell.
Everyone’s best guess is that it was used as an exhibit at the trial of the soldiers on Dhe, and I think there is good reason to believe that that Revere was the person who drew that image as well.
Jake Interview:
[1:06:27] Yeah, if I remember, I’ll put an image of that sketch in the show notes this week. I saw it at a special exhibition at the library a few years back.
He also revere also on the first anniversary of the massacre.
He illuminates his house, and I don’t have it exactly describe what he does.
But he uses all his windows almost like projection screens toe have different images of the victims of the massacre, the events of the massacre.
The blood rendered very vividly the closest thing to a a movie they would have had at the time almost.
Nat:
[1:07:00] Yeah, it’s a very dramatic scene, and, you know, that’s a tradition that that Boston radicals have been using for quite a while.
So in 17 66 when the news arrives in Boston in May of 66 that the stamp Act had been repealed by Parliament, the town’s all ready to go with a town wide illumination to celebrate.
And in the courtyard of one of the houses adjacent to the Liberty tree, they do a similar kind of elimination with you.
You put up a scrim with an image on it, and then you back it with really bright lanterns. So it it you know it.
It brings to life at night time the the scene.
So, yeah, Revere. Revere is eyes, I think, a great showman in some ways for in revolutionary Boston.
Jake Interview:
[1:07:53] So what other ways? We’re Bostonians remembering the massacre and the massacre victims during this in between period when the armed hostilities haven’t begun yet. What are people doing to remember the massacre during that five year window?
Nat:
[1:08:08] I think it’s worth pointing to two different, um, strands here, and one is in the legal context, right? So memory is deeply implicated in the trial of the soldiers.
Um, and I just want to touch on that briefly. But the other piece is this sort of public memory that’s taking shape.
Um, each anniversary, starting in 17 71 when the town gathers in Old South meeting house to here,
um, generation, Commemorating the loss of victims and reflecting on how to honor their sacrifice in the cause of liberty.
So if I could take those one at a time, Um, the trialled is, I think, really interesting,
opportunity for us to explore how memory is almost immediately bound up with storytelling about who belongs inside that circle of we and we, the people.
[1:09:11] And I mean that because, um, you know, the everybody understood that the easiest way to defend the soldiers was to try the town right to say the soldiers were acting in self defense. They felt that their lives were threatened.
The town became incredibly aggressive. And it’s really the responsibility of the reckless mob in the street.
Um, for what happened. Anybody would have behaved in the way that soldiers did if they thought their lives were threatened. Fair enough.
John Adams takes the job of defending the soldiers,
and Adams has done a good job or did a good job for the rest of his life of telling a fantastically heroic story about you know why he took the job of defending the soldiers and I think it’s partly right.
I mean, I don’t disagree that that he believed deeply that, um, everyone has a right to representation and that in a country of laws,
even the villains need to be represented appropriately, and, you know, it’s it’s about the law and the facts, Um.
Jake Interview:
[1:10:20] And also about the representation of the province, that Massachusetts could be a fair arbiter of the law. Even though the reputation was that we were lawless bunch of thugs, British soldiers could get a fair trial.
Nat:
[1:10:31] That’s right. It was very important. And I think that’s that’s been the frequent rejoinder is yes.
That was a very important part of Boston’s struggle to position itself as a responsible community within the English within the British empire.
It certainly had, um, political benefits, to be ableto to say that I think if you dig down even a little bit deeper, great.
The Wings didn’t want that defense to be mounted, right? So, really, what Adams is doing when he takes the job of defending the soldiers is he’s mounting a double defense.
So he has to defend the soldiers against the charge of manslaughter, merger, murder.
But he has to defend the town against the charge, implicit that they were the aggressors, right?
So what is the solution? And we know that that’s on his mind, because there’s a moment in which his.
[1:11:27] His fellow attorney in on the defense team, Josiah Quincy, says, Look, you know, the way to do this is is just to make it about the Mob, and Adam says, Well, I’m not gonna participate if that’s gonna be the strategy I’m walking away.
That’s not an argument. I’m gonna be associated with so he was really committed.
And his solution to this little dilemma here was to draw a distinction between what he called the good people of Boston and those who incited the violence.
So he doesn’t deny that the soldiers felt threatened. In fact, he four rounds that argument. But who were they threatened by? Not the good people of Boston?
Not all those people dressed in their genteel clothes, huddled under the tower of first church who were only innocent victims.
No, it’s that motley rabble, right?
It’s the um, and his words, right? The Jack Tars, the Irish, Teague’s the Negroes and the saucy boys. Right that it is.
It is the outsiders to our town who are responsible for this and the good people of Boston.
We’re not so what he’s done.
[1:12:40] All those people were Bostonians, right? And what he’s done at a,
at just with one quick rhetorical flourish is he’s drawn a distinction between who legitimately belongs in his mind in the circle of we and those who are outside of it.
And, you know, we should take note of that because as we struggle as Americans today to come to terms with some of these same questions.
Who gets to count whose voice gets to be heard? We’re dealing with the legacy of a revolutionary generation that drew distinctions that may be at odds with the distinctions we would want to draw today. And we should say that out loud.
[1:13:17] That’s how memories used in the trial, right?
Let’s let’s shape our memory and then to create these categories where we can place the different actors and we’ll remember them this way.
There were the crazy bunch over here, and there were the state and and sober bunch over here. And that’s part of the work of remembering and making the memory of this safe.
The public remembering that happens within Old South meeting house each year. And it continues until 17 83 is of real interest to me, too.
Um, and in part because this March 5th on the 250th anniversary of the Boston massacre, we’re going to ask some orders or some public figures to give short operations.
In the tradition that the town began in 17 71.
Jake Interview:
[1:14:12] Will they be reading from theory? Jinnah ll bust a massacre or Asians. Are they creating their own new addresses?
Nat:
[1:14:18] No, we’re We’re asking people to say their own words, and what we’ve told them is basically what I would say to you now about what was going on in those orations during the 17 seventies.
So those operations were not about the past. They were about the future.
So the all of the orders took a moment to remember those whose lives were lost.
But the rest of the oration was about.
So what can we do to ensure that there sacrifice that their lives were not given in vain?
How can we ensure that we advance the cause of justice for our own community?
And remember, Boston was deeply divided. So the public remembering that’s happening is partly about mobilizing the power of memory, to bring people together and to make common cause.
Um, and it’s very deliberate and I think quite successful at the time. And there are some incredible rations, you know. The one that really stands out is the one given by Joseph Warren and 17 75 which we can talk about in more detail if you bike.
But But I think you know, this is what I want to say to people about this whole arc of remembering that’s gonna happen.
[1:15:39] Between now 2020 the 250th anniversary of Boston Massacre and 2026 when will be remembering the 250th anniversary off American independence.
And I think, you know, we weaken do the anniversary is where it’s all about the past, and you know, we can come together and do a reenactment and,
you know, and enjoy the appearance of people in period costumes.
And I think all that’s important because it helps us to vivid the Imagine The past is a human experience, but I think we’re best served by saying no anniversaries, air, not about the past, there about the future, right?
And we honor we honor the true,
meaning of this memory by saying, How can we use it to articulate for ourselves a vision of the world we want to live in tomorrow and to advance our ongoing conversation?
Is Americans about what we mean when we say we, the people about who gets to have a voice I get about who has a seat at the table when we talk about the laws that will govern us and the the society that we want to live in.
So that’s what we’re trying to do on this March 5th is you know, we’ll have Governor Baker in in the room, and we’ve got several other.
[1:17:01] Public officials or community leaders who are gonna be talking in the same way about Okay, what is our vision?
And how can we use this memory to advance our cause as, ah, as a city and as a country come in this moment of need.
Jake Interview:
[1:17:20] So how does the memory or the public commemoration of the massacre changed through the Revolutionary War years and then into the early republic?
Nat:
[1:17:30] At the beginning of the war, everyone flees, and there’s probably not an oration.
But the reason I was thinking of 17 83 is because, um,
I do know that when the town when black abolitionists revived the tradition,
of the Mass Corporation in 18 58 after the Dread Scott decision, they explicitly include,
the, um, the minutes from the town meeting of 17 83 signed by William Cooper,
and the organizer.
And interestingly, of the of the observance in 18 58 is William Cooper Nell Ah, black abolitionist. So he’s got that William Cooper thing going.
But they he explicitly says this is the first time since 17 83 that the town has been gathered for a beneficial rations remembering the Boston Massacre time.
So without having done the research, I’m assuming that there were a few in there that were spotty.
But I think the important thing for us to remember or to note, is that when the war ends officially in 17 83 the nation makes a very,
explicit decision that official remembrance of the revolutionary period will be a celebration of independence, and that’s the date that we choose to observe,
as our official national observance of the success of the revolutionary cause.
[1:18:57] And in the midst of all of that, you know, the Fourth of July orations are a big thing in the years leading up to the Civil War.
But here come black abolitionists saying, No, no, We actually think it would be really helpful for a national discourse,
to gather on March 5th and remember the Boston massacre again, and they do that in 18 58 and I think it’s just incredibly important for us to attend to what’s going on there.
Jake Interview:
[1:19:24] So William Cooper Nell starts pushing not only to recognize the memory of the massacre, but he also is pushing to put Christmas addicts back at the center of that story at that point, had his part,
in the massacre falling to the wayside.
Nat:
[1:19:41] I don’t think it was lost, but it hadn’t ever been elevated as anything special and different from the sacrifice of the other victims.
Um, and there’s something very specific going on in that period of,
increasing, uh, debate, an argument over the institution of slavery that is gonna culminate with the Civil War in just a few years later.
[1:20:07] And I think we need to understand a little bit about the contemporary discourse at the time.
So one of the arguments that slaveholders and their allies were using to defend the institution of slavery in the face of the increasingly vocal abolitionist movement,
waas an argument that went something like this You can’t end slavery, because what would you do with former slaves?
Everybody knows that you can’t make citizens of people of African descent because and they’re drawing on it on a old idea of civic virtue.
Here, the hallmark of citizenship is the ability to sacrifice on behalf of the nation and the common good.
And people of African descent can’t do that and therefore can’t be made citizens.
So you know. Okay, that’s first of all, an argument that just does not compute to 21st century listeners, but it had its own.
[1:21:12] Legs in the 18 forties in the 18 fifties.
But here come black abolitionists who point out, uh, you know, we don’t have to pretend that this can’t be done or that it can, like, we have actual examples, and it’s useful,
to just meet my friend Crispus addicts over here, right?
He he gave his life for the cause of liberty. And, you know, we could call him the first person to have died on behalf of this enterprise that we now call the United States. So what you got right?
And, um and that’s what I mean, you know, it’s not an accident that they organize this first.
What comes to be called, um, Christmas Addicts Day observance,
in March of 18 58 which is the first anniversary the Boston massacre, after the Supreme Court, in the dread Scott decision, had basically agreed with the argument that,
that that black people couldn’t be citizens and had made that the official ruling and logged the land right?
So black abolitionist gathering Faneuil Hall to revive this tradition and to make this argument like.
[1:22:22] Christmas addicts is part of our founding story.
And, um, and you know what interests me and what I think should interest all of us today is that they’re using the founding story not,
as part of an argument about what what the accurate history of the American Revolution is.
They’re using it as an intervention in the conversation in 18 58 about who gets to be part of we, the people.
And you know that this is the linkage that we’re trying to make in our work at Revolutionary Spaces were still having conversation and debate an argument about that same question.
Who gets to be in the circle of we the people, and we can use these anniversaries that are gonna be deeply ingrained, engaging to a broad cross section of the public as we approach 2026.
We can use these anniversaries to make the same kinds of interventions.
Let’s use it as a platform for conversation about these questions that will never resolve forever there.
Each generation has to grapple with them.
And here’s our opportunity to use the history to advance our conversation about who we are today and who we want to be as a people together in the coming years.
Jake Interview:
[1:23:42] I don’t know much. At least I couldn’t put my finger on how things have changed in the memory of the massacre since that time.
But I know they I know that our memory must have continued to evolve because our identity is as a people’s continued to evolve. So what kind of changes do you think have been seen in the course of the 20th century in our early peek here into the 21st?
Nat:
[1:24:03] Well, you know, one of the things that was most of interest to us, or in some ways, a revelation when we started.
So we’re we’re mounting an exhibit that called Reflecting Attics that will open on March 5th and that pulls together some of the,
um some of the visual record of the different ways in which addicts has been remembered across time and also helps us try to reconstruct who the man was and what his background was To the extent that we can get at it.
One of the things that really struck us was you hit a certain point in the 20th century where the memory of addicts becomes commodified and.
[1:24:42] And is, you know, subject to becoming, you know, just part of American consumer enterprise in the way that, you know, bobble heads of the other founding fathers.
All right, so we collected a bunch of like trading cards that were addicts, is one of the founding fathers or the the Jim Beam bottle from the bicentennial that has a big fat picture. Christmas addicts on it. Why?
We don’t know. But I think that what it says is there was a kind of official blessing of addicts as part of the pantheon.
And now, you know, feel free to mythologize the way you do with everybody else.
Um, so that’s happening in consumer culture in interesting ways.
But I don’t want to say that the struggle for racial justice in Boston that addicts has the memory of addicts has been one strand of or one part of the conversation around for a long time went away.
I mean, you know, it’s really important to recognize the Boston Equal Rights League.
Um, is still here in Boston. The historic Boston Equal Rights League is still working to Mount Christmas Addicts Day commemorations every year.
And Melania CASS, who was the head of that organization during the 19 seventies, um, make sure that that the the subject was.
[1:26:07] Part of our official commemorations and was put forward for conversation during the middle of the 19 seventies as we went through the bicentennial celebrations.
But it’s also the moment at which Boston’s going through the busing crisis and having a very difficult conversations about about are segregated schools and about the challenges of creating a more integrated city.
You know, an opening wounds that we still haven’t fully healed from as a city. So, um, you know, addicts. Is there as part of that conversation again, being used to drive the conversation as a Touchstone?
Not necessarily that it’s it’s, um, a guide, but it’s an opportunity to mount the conversation that we need to have.
Um, and I think this is you know, it feels like, um, you know, we’re still as a city grappling with the echoes of that bussing crisis in the 19 seventies and the wounds that that open.
But it does feel as though we’re at an inflection point, and I think it’s a city, you know.
[1:27:16] It’s important that we tell the story of our founding era because it’s so important to what it means to be Boston and a Bostonian, that we tell that story in a way that allows,
all people to see themselves in it and to feel as though it’s their story, too.
And, you know, I think the power to come all the way back to the way that revolutionary Spaces wants to.
[1:27:44] Engage people in exploring the deep story that lives in the Old State House, an Old South meeting house, the power of helping people to surface.
The debate about we, the people,
in the building and come into those buildings and continue that debate today,
is that we all have equal claim to that story because it doesn’t matter when you, you know you can have a Mayflower ancestor or you can.
Your family could have arrived in Boston five years ago,
as immigrants from from other lands, and it’s just a CZ much your story because you’re entering into our city, which is still debating who gets to be part of the we and we the people.
And that’s the conversation we’re having in every neighborhood, not just in Boston, but around the country right now.
And to the extent that the story that lives in these buildings as a tool to help us answer those questions for our own time in a more just and equitable way, I think it’s just a cz much.
[1:28:55] You know, it’s everybody’s story in equal way.
So if we can get to 2026 be telling our city’s history,
in that way so that when a Patriots game is on TV and you see the iconic buildings of Boston and the Old State House or Old South meeting houses up on the screen,
I’m we feel like no matter who we are, it’s That’s my building, right that that will say something about change in this city if we can really get there.
Jake Interview:
[1:29:26] So as you talk about seeing the faces of the Old State House, an Old South meeting house flash up on screen during a Patriots game and having all Bostonians hopefully feel a sense of ownership and pride in those institutions,
what’s coming up this coming week through both these institutions to commemorate the sister centennial of the Boston Massacre?
Nat:
[1:29:49] We are doing some exciting events in the first half of March, but I want to say that we see this as, ah, commemoration that spans the whole year.
So the March, the March 5th and related events are really just the kick off to a series of programs that will unfold across the entire year.
Um, and those air programs that we’re offering to the to the city of Boston and to our region and two visitors from out of town.
But I think it’s also important for me to note that their programs and content that have been developed in partnership with people from all over our region as well.
So we’ve been working in dialogue with community partners for the better part of the last year to develop the questions that are animating, um, the programs that are gonna roll out this year.
And it’s really for us an opportunity to introduce in a new kind of practice in our work, which is,
really trying to get out of the business of telling people what the past means and into the business of bringing people together to join with us in making meaning around the past, right so we want.
We want to co author our work with with partners in the community who see an opportunity to use this.
[1:31:12] This historic material to get at the issues that matter to them today, eh? So what does that look like in practice?
We’re not trying to do everything all at once, but we are for us.
The big kickoff is speaking program on March 5th, which will be, as I said, sort of in the tradition of those operations at different moments in Boston, mass.
Corporations reflecting on the history as a way to give our audience a charge, to carry forward the cause of creating a more Justin Equitable city.
[1:31:49] So that will be key noted. As I said by Governor Baker, we’re hoping that the mayor will be there.
There are a number of other prominent public figures who I hope will be their thio to share their own ideas.
About that were there will be a reenactment of the of the incident on Saturday night, March 7th on.
We’ve got a fantastic and dedic created group of volunteers and living historians who are not just going to do the reenactment of the shooting in the evening,
but will be spending the whole day on Saturday in both Old South Meeting House and the Old State House and also in the city blocks between the two buildings,
doing doing living history, interpretation, talking with people about what it was like to live in an occupied city,
sort of setting the scene for the commemoration.
So those are the two programs that are happening for revolutionary spaces, and we’re also opening At the beginning of March.
[1:32:55] A new exhibition called Reflecting Addicts, which will be a Touchstone for For,
you can come in and explore the history of addicts and the visual record telling us how he has been remembered across time on your own.
Or there will be gallery tours and programs.
There will be conversations about how we take this information and turn it into something actionable in our communities today and then, you know, as we roll forward. So that’s that’s the spring season.
You know, there’ll be smaller programs that will happen throughout the spring.
During the summer, our activities will be highlighted by, um, a very exciting work of public art.
We have commissioned a nationally visible artist who has just moved to our city to to reflect on the theme of race, citizenship and memory that is bound up with this story and.
[1:33:55] And Thio use art to put a series of challenging questions to our community.
So I’m I’m we’re still at the point where we’re finalizing the concept designed for that, so I’m not at liberty to tell you too much about it.
But it’s coming during the summer and will be up throughout the middle of the summer months, and our programming smaller programs during the summer months will be built around,
the art and dialogue with the artist and with the community groups that have been engaged in,
in developing that work of art.
Um and then, yeah. No, I mean, I know what I would encourage people to do is just.
Jake Interview:
[1:34:27] Titties.
Nat:
[1:34:32] Get on our mailing list and make sure that they there were, ah, sending out email updates to you when? When we have them.
Because all this will be coming into better focus as three year goes on.
But also during the summer, there will be, we hope, a new small place.
We’ve done a lot with historical theater lately, and we’re,
um we’re working on a piece that is just gonna be a small drama that puts Christmas addicts into conversation with activists and, uh, and community voices from different moments in history.
So it’s sort of a cross generational conversation.
What would Christmas addicts want to say to somebody who’s involved with black lives matter?
[1:35:18] And what would activist today want to say to Christmas addicts?
What would addicts have to say to black abolitionists and what would they want to say to him? So that will be up during the summer months and on view at Old South meeting house.
We don’t have the schedule finalized, but again, that’ll that’ll come up on our calendar soon enough on and then another plate during the fall, the fall season is gonna be anchored by blood on the snow, which is the play I was describing earlier.
That sort of brings to life in the council chamber where the history happened an hour in real time on the day after the Boston massacre, and as an opportunity for people to reflect on that.
That liminal moment after violence happens when we’re trying to figure out how to put our communities back together again, which I think is an experience that a lot of us, unfortunately can relate to in this crazy 21st century that we’re living in.
Jake Interview:
[1:36:15] So if people want to get updates about the programming throughout the years that happens, or if they want to find out more about revolutionary spaces, where should they be looking online?
To find out more, get on your mailing list and keep up with everything that’s gonna be coming up in 2020.
Nat:
[1:36:31] So the place to go is to our new website, Revolutionary Spaces Dot or GE, which, um, you know, please have patience because we’re a new organization.
So the website is still in development and I would encourage people to check back regularly because we’ll be adding more information as we go,
on and there is a way to sign up for for email updates there.
So when all else fails, just put yourself on our list and we’ll make sure that we get the information out to USAID comes online.
Jake Interview:
[1:37:04] Well, not shyly. Thank you very much for joining us today.
Nat:
[1:37:06] Thank you very much for having me on.
Jake Intro-Outro:
[1:37:09] Toe. Learn more about revolutionary spaces and the 250th anniversary of the Boston Massacre.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 174 We’ll have links to the full schedule of events Commemorating the sister centennial of the massacre, as well as a press release announcing the creation of revolutionary spaces.
We’ll make sure to include copies of the engravings of the massacre created by Henry Pelham and Paul Revere, as well as a copy of the sketch map that was also created by Paul Revere.
We’ll also include photos taken by yours truly at past reenactments so you know what you’re in for.
[1:37:46] And, of course, we’ll have a link to information about the Boston Massacre. A family history, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.
[1:37:54] If you’d like to leave us some feedback, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
Were hub history on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or just Goto hub history dot com and click on the Contact US link while you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode.
We’re in all your favorite podcasting, APS including Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts Tune and Radio Player FM, and many more stream the show every Sunday night at 8 p.m. On Boston free radio dot com.
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Jake Intro-Outro:
[1:39:03] That’s all for now. We’ll be back next week.