229 The Townshend Moment

Ben Franklin's World

Liz Covart

Earlyrepublic, History, Benfranklin, Society & Culture, Warforindependence, Earlyamericanrepublic, Earlyamericanhistory, Education, Colonialamerica, Americanrevolution, Ushistory, Benjaminfranklin

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2019

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Within days of the Boston Massacre, Bostonians politicized the event. They circulated a pamphlet about “the Horrid Massacre” and published images portraying soldiers firing into a well-assembled and peaceful crowd.  

But why did the Boston Massacre happen? Why did the British government feel it had little choice but to station as many 2,000 soldiers in Boston during peacetime? And what was going on within the larger British Empire that drove colonists to the point where they provoked armed soldiers to fire upon them?

Patrick Griffin, the Madden-Hennebry Family Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and author of The Townshend Moment: The Making of Empire and Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, joins us to answer these questions as we continue our 3-episode investigation of the Boston Massacre.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/229

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Ben Franklin's world is a production of the
0:02.5	O'Mohandro Institute.
0:04.0	Hello and welcome to
0:07.0	to episode.
0:11.0	Hello and welcome to episode 229 of Ben Franklin's world.
0:17.0	The podcast dedicated to helping you learn more about how the people and events of our early American past have shaped the present day world we live in.
0:25.3	And I'm your host, Liz Kovart.
0:28.2	On March 5, 1770 during the evening, a crowd in Boston surrounded a century on guard at the custom house.
0:34.0	Testimony varies as to why they gathered, but we know from historical sources
0:38.8	that the crowd was not an innocent one.
0:40.6	Its members carry clubs, cutlasses, snowballs, and aimed to provoke the soldier.
0:46.7	Now, the crowd's provocation had its intended effect, even if it brought unintended consequences.
0:53.0	The soldier and the compatriots who came to his aid
0:56.1	reacted to the crowd's goating and fired their muskets.
1:00.2	Five crowd members died. Within days of the shooting, Boston Town officials wrote and published a pamphlet to relay their version of events,
1:08.0	which they described as the horrid massacre.
1:11.0	And engraver's Paul Revere and Henry Pelham both printed a similar image. It portrayed an officer standing behind 8 to 10 of his men and giving the order to fire into a well-assembled and peaceful crowd. These are just some of the ways
1:25.1	Bostonians politicize the Boston massacre and their version of events has
1:30.0	always seemed to depict elements of a conspiracy or a design on the part of the British government
1:34.8	to do them harm.
1:36.7	But why?
1:38.2	What was going on within the larger British Empire, the agitated colonists to the point where they were provoking armed soldiers in Boston streets and seeing
	...

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