"A Lawyer Acquitted: John Adams and the Boston Massacre". American Journal of Legal History. 18 (3): 189–207. doi: 10.2307/845085.
Boston Massacre Trial. Murmurs and rumblings of anger filled the air. Captain Thomas Preston, a British grenadier, shifted his feet nervously and felt the sweat rising to his brow. If the jury found him, and his men, guilty of murder as the indictment suggested, he could only expect death as a penalty.
Adams defended the British officer Thomas Preston and his soldiers in two separate trials. Can you talk about the balancing act Adams undertook to defend all his clients without alienating his fellow Bostonians, many of whom fervently supported the broader patriot cause?
Boston Massacre Trial. A defense lawyer to the last, Adams negotiated the sentences of Montgomery and Kilroy using and ancient precedent of English law. The “Plea of Clergy” meant that instead of death, the two men would be branded on the thumbs as first offenders, never to be permitted to violate the law again.
The prosecution lawyers were Robert Treat Paine and Samuel Quincy. The defense team included John Adams, Josiah Quincy, Jr. (Samuel Quincy's brother), Sampson Salter Blowers, and Robert Auchmuty. Both trials lasted longer than one day, which was rare at this time for Massachusetts courts.
President John AdamsEight soldiers, one officer, and four civilians were arrested and charged with murder, and they were defended by future U.S. President John Adams.
John AdamsJohn Adams Defends the British It took seven months to arraign Preston and the other soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre and bring them to trial. Ironically, it was American colonist, lawyer and future President of the United States John Adams who defended them.
aptain Thomas Preston and eight British soldiers were on trial for murder.
His unique perspective and his ability to galvanize popular support were pivotal in the success of the Boston Tea Party. Considered the leader of the protest movement against Parliament's authority in Massachusetts, Samuel Adams was instrumental in convincing people to join the Sons of Liberty.
Thomas Preston ( c. 1722—c. 1798) was a British officer, a captain who served in Boston in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He commanded troops in the Boston Massacre in 1770 and was tried for murder, but he was acquitted.
Crispus Attucks, a multiracial man who had escaped slavery, is known as the first American colonist killed in the American Revolution. On the evening of March 5, 1770, British troops fired into a crowd of angry American colonists in Boston who had taunted and violently harassed them. Five colonists were killed.
Adams was a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress and became a leader of the revolution. He assisted Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain and secured vital governmental loans.
Above all, John Adams believed in upholding the law, and defending the innocent. Adams was convinced that the soldiers were wrongly accused, and had fired into the crowd in self-defense.
Adams Reacts to the Boston Tea Party When he returned the very next morning, he was shocked that the Sons of Liberty undertook such a foolhardy course, but was nonetheless pleasantly surprised.
Who Organized the Boston Tea Party? Though led by Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty and organized by John Hancock, the names of many of those involved in the Boston Tea Party remain unknown. Thanks to their Native American costumes, only one of the tea party culprits, Francis Akeley, was arrested and imprisoned.
The vast majority was of English descent, but men of Irish, Scottish, French, Portuguese, and African ancestry were documented to have also participated. The participants were of all ages, but the majority of the documented participants was under the age of forty.
Eight British soldiers and their officer in charge, Captain Thomas Preston, faced charges for murdering five colonists. Not far from the Custom House, a 34-year-old Boston attorney sat in his office ...
The blood remained fresh on the snow outside Boston’s Custom House on the morning of March 6 , 1770. Hours earlier, rising tensions between British troops and colonists had exploded into violence when a band of Redcoats opened fire on a crowd that had pelted them with not just taunts, but ice, oyster shells and broken glass. Although the soldiers claimed to have acted in self-defense, patriot propaganda referred to the incident as the Boston Massacre. Eight British soldiers and their officer in charge, Captain Thomas Preston, faced charges for murdering five colonists.
Not far from the Custom House, a 34-year-old Boston attorney sat in his office and made a difficult decision. Although a devout patriot, John Adams agreed to risk his family’s livelihood and defend the British soldiers and their commander in a Boston courtroom. At stake was not just the fate of nine men, but the relationship between ...
In the new book John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father’s Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial, Dan Abrams and coauthor David Fisher detail what they call the “most important case in colonial American history” and an important landmark in the development of American jurisprudence. Abrams, who is also the chief legal affairs ...
Stunningly so. I think the verdicts are almost exactly what we would see today. It’s obvious to me that Captain Preston didn’t order his men to fire, and he was acquitted. They could have convicted all the soldiers for the actions of one or two of them, but they didn’t—because there simply wasn’t evidence that the others were involved in the shooting. And I think that’s an amazing testament to the jurors of the day.
Yes, they were using British law, but there was also this sense that the colonists wanted their own system of law, so some of the rules were different. This was the first time reasonable doubt had ever been used as a standard. It was the first time a jury was sequestered. This was definitely a case of firsts.
Adams didn’t blame the city for initiating the skirmish. He kept it very, very focused on the facts of this particular instance—what happened, who was there, the specific individuals—and did not make it a broader indictment of the Sons of Liberty and others who had supported violence against the British soldiers.
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 in order ...
The Boston Massacre is considered one of the most significant events that turned colonial sentiment against King George III and British Parliamentary authority. John Adams wrote that the "foundation of American independence was laid" on March 5, 1770, and Samuel Adams and other Patriots used annual commemorations ( Massacre Day) to encourage public sentiment toward independence. Christopher Monk was the boy who was wounded in the attack and died in 1780, and his memory was honored as a reminder of British hostility.
British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 in order to support crown-appointed officials and to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. Amid tense relations between the civilians and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry and verbally abused him.
Howard Zinn argues that Boston was full of "class anger". He reports that the Boston Gazette published in 1763 that "a few persons in power" were promoting political projects "for keeping the people poor in order to make them humble.".
Boston was the capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and an important shipping town, and it was also a center of resistance to unpopular acts of taxation by the British Parliament in the 1760s .
For the 2013 bombing, see Boston Marathon bombing. The Boston Massacre was a confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. British troops had been stationed in the Province ...
Boston's chief customs officer Charles Paxton wrote to Hillsborough for military support because "the Government is as much in the hands of the people as it was in the time of the Stamp Act .". Commodore Samuel Hood responded by sending the 50-gun warship HMS Romney, which arrived in Boston Harbor in May 1768.