ely involved in this protest, since they were the main consumers of tea in America. Riots and protests burst across the county, the biggest and most influential one being the famous “Boston Tea Party”. In this riot, an English boat carrying tea shipments was docked in the Boston Harbor. Three bands of fifty men each went aboard the ship, and wildly emptied the tea chests overboard into the harbor. The Boston Massacre exemplifies how British military measures backfired and allowed the Americans to gain a sense of unity in working towards a common goal of independence. What actually happened in the event was a bit unclear to historians. It seems as though there was a scuffle between British soldiers stationed in the town of Boston and Boston laborers. The soldiers had started to compete with the Bostonians for jobs during their off-duty hours, and, to put it lightly, the Bostonians were not pleased. On March 5th, 1770, the situation got out of hand. In the end, British soldiers killed 5 innocent people when they fired into the angry crowd. This “Boston Massacre” was used as pro-revolutionary propaganda and spread across America like wildfire the injustices of British rule. Paul Revere painted horrid images of the soldiers ruthlessly killing the innocent workers, and Samuel Adams, one of the most effective radicals in America, told stories of oppression, corruption, and sin in England. He organized a “committee of correspondence,” which openly publicized the complaints American had with England, and other colonies followed Massachusetts’s example in forming political organizations of their own. It could be said that if not for the legacy of religious and political ideas in the colonies, the spirit of revolution would never have had the potential to exist in America. In the early 1760’s, when the revolutionary ideas were just starting to emerge, people could look to two sources of information ...
