Author: Serena Zabin
Title: The Boston Massacre: A Family History
Narrator: Andrea Gallo
Publication Info: Recorded Books, 2020
Summary/Review:
The Boston Massacre is seen as a precipitating event of the American Revolution, but at the time, no one knew the revolution was coming. People made the incident represent their political ideologies, whether it was Paul Revere depicting the British army as butchers, or John Adams defending the troops in court.
To provide new perspectives and context to the Boston Massacre, Zabin performs a family approach to the history. Soldiers assigned to Boston in 1768 often travelled with their family, wives and children who were derisively called “camp followers.” Other soldiers married local women. The Massachusetts women who married into the military were criticized, but Zabin also notes that many of them were still considered upstanding members of society during the revolution.
The presence of British troops in the town’s streets caused tension as Bostonians were not used to being stopped at checkpoints. Zabin writes that using troops to quell civil disorder was common in the British empire and lead to multiple Boston Massacre-type incidents, even in London, in the previous decades. The arrival of a large number of men in a small town also created another conflict in that soldiers would take on jobs in an already tight labor market. On the other hand, soldiers rented rooms and bought goods providing needed income for local landlords and retailers. Some soldiers grew to have neighborly relations with the Bostonians they lived among.
Zabin concludes the family analogy with the idea that the Revolution was a divorce. The strong family ties between Britain and her colonies were severed rather abruptly in the crises that would occur in the coming years. This work is an excellent approach to understanding the meaning of the Boston Massacre beyond just a marker on the way to revolution.
Recommended books:
- As If an Enemy’s Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution by Richard Archer
- A Few Bloody Noses: The Realities and Mythologies of the American Revolution by Robert Harvey
- Boston Riots: Three Centuries of Social Violence by Jack Tager
Rating: ****
Panorama of the Mountains 