The Boston Massacre happened on March 5, 1770. A group of people started throwing snowballs at British soldiers, the soldiers started shooting at the people throwing the snowballs and ended up killed 5 people and leaving 6 wounded. This event wasn’t “The Boston Massacre” until many years after. The first popular name by Paul Revere was The Bloody Massacre in King Street. In the early 1800s it was also called the State Street Massacre.
When this event happened and the civilians were dead, the soldiers got put up in trial. Nine of the soldiers were guilty. Preston and six of his men were free, two others were found guilty of manslaughter. In my opinion this was a good thing the law did because the soldiers weren’t supposed to shoot the civilians and kill five people just for a snowball.
Boston Massacre in my opinion shouldnt be called “massacre” because when I think of the Boston Massacre I think thousands of people were killed, and only five people were killed during this event. My question is why would the civilians throw a snowball to the soldiers if they knew the soldiers had guns and could shoot at them easily, what was the reason they threw snowballs? I think the civilians emotional reaction was to throw snowballs because they were already mad for high taxes and taxes on tea.
http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-massacre