Boston Massacre

A name popularly given to a disturbance which occurred in the streets of Boston on the evening of March 5, 1770, when a sergeant’s guard belonging to the British garrison fired upon a crowd of people who were surrounding them and pelting them with snowballs, and killed 3 men besides wounding several others. The leader of the townspeople was a black man named Crispus Attucks. The affair is of historical importance, as it prepared the minds of men for the Revolutionary struggle which followed.