The Boston Massacre. Accident or Murder?

You are part of a professionally trained military unit. You work for the king of Britain. The year is 1770. Boston, Massachusetts is a cold and snowy settlement with citizens who hate you. Your king is a tyrant. He taxes them without giving them any say in government and they have had enough. However, you are a professional. Despite the formation of a mob in a public square, you will not do anything unless ordered. This is not a situation where it is your decision to act and there are others gathered by your side along with your commander. The snow is cold at your feet, the air crisp. Every voice of the crowd can be heard as well as the breath of your comrades beside you. Their hearts race with nervous anticipation of battle and a slight fear of the crude weapons the citizens of Boston have gathered. Stones are thrown at you and your fellow soldiers. You suddenly are reminded of David and Goliath and how a stone could easily kill or cripple a giant, much less a man. The situation is quickly becoming dangerous. Your uniform is more for show than for protection and your head is poorly covered. A three pointed hat can be easily penetrated by a musket ball, but a pitchfork or shovel or other hard and heavy objects easily maim or kill.

The mob is getting angry. You and your fellow soldiers keep hearing that key word, the word you are afraid to hear, "FIRE!" The crowd has been taunting you, asking, no screaming for you to attack. Where is your commander? You have lost his position in the commotion. A fellow soldier's musket goes off and a member of the crowd drops to the snow covered ground, now splashed with fresh blood. Again you immediately hear the command, "FIRE!" but where is it coming from? There is no longer any choice. Your weapon has been trained on the crowd this whole time and you fire. You fire as commanded, as is necessary to keep order and to maintain your safety. Several more in the crowd seek the comfort of death as musket balls penetrate their winter coats, spilling their life about the cold dirt.

Few times in history do we hear both sides of a story. I hoped in presenting a soldier's view of this event, it could be better understood in a more thorough manner. Consider this perspective and decide for yourself if one of the most famous atrocities of the British during its colonization of the American continent was indeed a massacre or just an accident perpetuated by a crowd of inciters.