The Boston Massacre Trials

John Adams decided to defend the British soldiers because he felt that fevered sentiments against the British may have clouded the actual events, and that a hasty verdict based on emotion would damage the colonial cause for self-government. By defending the soldiers, Adams thought that he would demonstrate that anyone accused of a crime, no matter how heavily disliked, deserves a fair trial.

Paul Revere’s cartoon depicts the crowd of colonists as bewildered and frightened. This portrayal ignores the fact that many of the colonists had aggressively engaged the British soldiers by hurling snowballs, ice, and various other objects. The shooting in the cartoon seems coordinated, but in reality the soldiers fired spontaneously, without any specific order. Revere’s cartoon also apparently misses Crispus Attucks, who was arguably the leader of the crowd, because all of the colonists illustrated are white.

Adams stated that if the colonists provoked the soldiers in a way that could be construed as life-threatening, then the soldiers were completely within their rights to defend themselves. However, if the provocation was not quite so severe, the soldiers’ actions would still not constitute murder, and would be reduced to manslaughter.

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the responsibility for the event lies. The crowd of colonists appears to be most responsible, since taunting and provoking an armed group of soldiers is never a good idea. As the crowd grew, it was almost inevitable that someone would overstep the boundaries and do something to explode the situation.

The most appropriate conviction, from a modern perspective, would have been manslaughter for some soldiers, and acquittal for others. Certainly, the soldiers had reason to feel threatened by the mob, but the mob had not thrown anything life-threatening. The soldiers who fired without an order and ended up killing people should have been assigned manslaughter; however, even if the shooting had been ordered, it would not have made a difference, since the Nuremberg trials established that personal responsibility remained applicable regardless. The other soldiers should have been acquitted given the confusing situation and the lack of solid evidence.