Boston’s Revolutionary War

Beginnings of Revolution

Struggles for equality in Boston’s “revolutionary corridor” are nothing new. In the Revolutionary Era, many different people advocated for independence from Britain, for freedom from slavery, and for the same rights that were given to wealthy, white men under the law. The modes of protest used during the American Revolutionary period varied widely from the beginning of tensions in the 1760s to the end of the war in 1781. Protests ranged from the words written in the Declaration of Independence, to the destruction of property during the Boston Tea Party, to the rocks and sticks patriot sympathizers hurled at British soldiers just before the Boston Massacre. Boston’s revolutionary corridor witnessed much of the protests firsthand.

Protest gripped almost every aspect of society during the American Revolution. Revolution galvanized the demonstrations of a working class shoemaker named George Robert Twelves Hewes, the words of a political leader such as Samuel Adams, and the legal proceedings brought forth by Black men and women who sued and petitioned for their freedom from enslavement. Still, the promise of political and social rights for some of the city’s inhabitants did not hold true for others. At the end of the Revolution, women, Native Americans, and enslaved people received no more acknowledgement of their personhood than they had at its beginning. These stories of revolution and resistance were just the beginning of multiple generations’ struggles for justice, equality, and civil rights that played out on the same landscapes as their revolutionary predecessors. In the 250 years since the Revolution, Boston’s revolutionary corridor continues to provide a stage for wide-ranging political and social causes, such as the 19th century protests against the Fugitive Slave Laws, to labor activism in the 19th and 20th centuries, to the more recent ongoing efforts to ensure the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Demonstrations both violent and peaceful, legislative petitions and lawsuits, and words meant to incite change are all common forms of protests that were used during the Revolutionary Era, and that are still used in Boston today.

Protests Using Violence

One of the most memorable protests of the Revolutionary period, the Boston Massacre, was a violent protest that took place in the heart of the revolutionary corridor. As a major trading port in British North America, Boston suffered directly from the taxes imposed on imports like sugar, tea, and paper. Though friction between colonists and their counterparts in England had been brewing for quite some time, the night of March 5, 1770 marked one of the most memorable explosions of violence in American history. British soldiers opened fire on protesters voicing their discontent with their daily lives and government, including British rule, economic injustices, and disputes with other citizens. Five civilians died as a result, including Crispus Attucks, a man of African and likely Native American ancestry from Framingham, Massachusetts. The Massacre’s location directly in front of the “Town House” — now known as the Old State House — fomented the anger felt by many citizens sympathetic to the Patriot cause. In the aftermath of the event, Paul Revere (later made more famous for his role as a patriot by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”) created an engraving that depicted several British regulars blatantly firing on a group of nonviolent protesters, murdering them in cold blood. This image was one of the massacre’s most circulated interpretations.^[1]Justin du Rivage, Revolution Against Empire: Taxes, Politics, and the Origins of American Independence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 112; Andrea McArdle, “Race and the American … Continue reading

Paul Revere’s copper plate engraving depicting one interpretation of the Boston Massacre of 1770. Notably, the colonists portrayed are all unarmed, well-dressed gentlemen. The British soldiers, with angry expressions on their faces, are firing unprovoked into a large crowd. Their commanding officer is ordering them to fire in a group, ensuring maximum casualties among the colonists. A sign reading “Butcher’s Hall” hangs above the soldiers, labeling them butchers in Revere’s account.

Courtesy American Antiquarian Society

But just how accurate was Revere’s interpretation? Were the colonists protesting peacefully? While the Paul Revere plate emphasizes the aggression of British soldiers, other sources reported the event differently. The later trial of several British regulars who had fired into the crowd that night alleged that a group of colonists opposed to British governance provoked the soldiers, and caused the confusion and disorder that led soldiers to believe they had been ordered to fire on the protesters. They reported that the colonists had been throwing rocks and brandishing clubs during their protest – certainly not the peaceful movement that Revere would later depict. It may not have been as severe as the extreme violence of later military actions, but the demonstration in front of the “Town House” that night had been far from calm.^[2]Neil Longley York, “Rival Truths, Political Accommodation, and the Boston’ Massacre,’” Massachusetts Historical Review 11 (2009)

Protests Using Property

Violent protest continued in Boston leading up to the outbreak of war. Just three years later on December 16, 1773, the Boston Tea Party may not have cost lives, but it did result in extensive property destruction. Colonists protested against laws which gave privileges to the British East India Company to import tea from China, while colonists were taxed but had no special trade rights or representation within Parliament. Led by the Sons of Liberty, a protest group organized by infamous revolutionaries such as Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, disgruntled Bostonians dumped tea from ships originating in the British East Indies, another set of British colonies, into the Boston Harbor rather than allow it to be sold in the city.^[3]Young, “George Robert Twelves Hewes.”

George Robert Twelves Hewes was one “ordinary” Bostonian who participated in the Tea Party, and his recollection of the event provides a window for modern historians to understand exactly how the protest unfolded. Like many other participants, Hewes was middle to lower class and found his everyday life greatly affected by the British taxes. He chose to express his displeasure with the government by throwing imported tea into the Boston Harbor since earlier protests had not led to meaningful change. Hewes and the others who took part in the Tea Party had two main goals: to stop the tea from reaching the market and to serve as a signal to British officials that the colonists were not afraid to use violent tactics in order to protect their interests.^[4]Young,
George Robert Twelves Hewes.”

These acts of protest in the 18th century played out in a very specific part of Boston — our revolutionary corridor. This space was often the center of politics, economy, and geography in the Revolutionary Era, uniting many struggles for justice and liberty in a common location. There was not much distance between the site of the Boston Massacre at the State House and the Tea Party at Griffin’s Wharf. The following map displays the location of Griffin’s Wharf as it was situated within eighteenth-century Boston. Its identified landmarks show us just how close the spaces within the revolutionary corridor were, and still are, today.

This section of a map created by John Bonner in 1769 shows Griffin’s Wharf, where many historians speculate the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773. Due to geographic and landscape changes in the centuries since the Boston Tea Party, it does not look very similar to the city you might see while walking down State Street. Changes to the shoreline over time mean that the wharves in this map are now solid land, likely home to apartments, shops, or parks. But by using familiar landmarks such as the State House, we can situate Griffin’s Wharf and the probable location of the Tea Party within the Revolutionary Corridor on this map. Griffin’s Wharf is in the lower left corner of the map, while the Old State House is marked by the capital “A” in the map’s top center. Additionally, the edge of the Boston Common and Tremont Street can be seen at the very top.

Courtesy Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library

Protests Using Words

After protest evolved into war beginning with the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, everyday life in Boston became even more tumultuous than it had been in the previous years. A siege brought the city to a stand-still as colonial forces struggled to regain control of the land. Then, after British troops left Boston in 1776, it regained its status as one of the busiest ports in North America. The revolutionary corridor would have buzzed with economic, political, and military activity, as it was at the center of one of the most essential cities in the colonies.

On one summer afternoon in 1776, more excitement gripped the corridor than occurred on most other days even in the midst of war. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and two weeks later on July 18, the document was first publicly read aloud to Bostonians from the balcony of the Old State House. A crowd of citizens gathered for the reading, Abigail Adams among them. She wrote her husband John Adams that “the cry from the balcony was ‘God save our American States,’” after which the citizens gave three cheers. Even today, crowds gather at the Old State House every Fourth of July to hear the public reading of the Declaration. ^[5]“Object of the Month: Declaration of Independence,” The Massachusetts Historical Society, July 2002,  https://masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/declaration-of-independence-2002-07-01.

This postcard ca. 1940 depicts the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in Boston at the Old State House.

Courtesy Digital Commonwealth

This was the first time that the revolutionary words of the Declaration were spoken publicly in Boston, and they marked a monumental union between the colonies. The Declaration of Independence was shared among patriot supporters in all thirteen of the colonies, ideologically uniting areas that had until then been incredibly different and disparate. Of course, the unity would not last, but while each colony’s citizens listened to the words advocating separation from Great Britain, they were of the same mind. Unlike the instances of protest on the nights of the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party, the first reading of the Declaration of Independence in Boston was an instance of peaceful protest in the face of what patriots considered British oppression. While some other colonists disagreed with the revolution or did not care who made their laws, the reading of the Declaration of Independence did not affect their lives in the same drastic ways that other protests had.^[6]“Object of the Month: Declaration of Independence,” The Massachusetts Historical Society, July 2002,  https://masshist.org/object-of-the-month/objects/declaration-of-independence-2002-07-01.

Hopes of Freedom for All

Miniature portrait of Elizabeth Freeman, also known as “Mumbet,” a former slave who successfully sued her owners for her freedom.

Courtesy Massachusetts Historical Society

Battles for the future of the colonies were fought with guns and cannon, but for enslaved people, the long struggle for their individual rights would continue for another century. As the Revolutionary War drew to a close many Black Americans remained in bondage. However, several instances of personal rebellion stand out. The Ashley family enslaved Elizabeth Freeman, also known as “Mumbet,” in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1781, as the Revolutionary War drew to a close, Freeman sued her owners for her freedom. How was it fair, she and her lawyers argued, that she remained someone else’s property when the new Massachusetts state constitution championed that “all men are born free and equal”? Her protests were not the first of their kind. In fact, an earlier petition was signed by several prominent men in Boston in 1777. Their petition was delivered to the Old State House, the center of Boston government in the eighteenth century and the location where both the Boston Massacre and first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in Boston took place. Among the petition’s signers was Prince Hall, who had been an ardent abolitionist since securing his freedom in 1770. He would later go on to found the first African American chapter of the Freemasons in America.^[7]Arthur Zilversmit, “Quok Walker, Mumbet, and the Abolition of Slavery in Massachusetts,” The William and Mary Quarterly 25, 4 (1968): 622; “African Americans and the End of Slavery in … Continue reading

These petitions and court cases, their own form of rebellion against an unjust society and legal system, helped lay the groundwork for antislavery movements in the Northeast United States. However, despite the strides made toward freeing enslaved people from bondage in the Northeast, and despite the promises of the American Revolution, true equality under the law for all men and women would remain elusive for centuries to come. These struggles have played out in the revolutionary corridor over the past two hundred and fifty years, and they continue to the present day.

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Further Reading

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/.

Phillips, Kevin. 1775: A Good Year for Revolution. New York: Penguin Books, 2012.

McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Boston National Historical Park Website. https://www.nps.gov/bost/index.htm.

"Give Me Liberty: African Americans in the Revolutionary War." George Washington's Mount Vernon. 2020. https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/african-americans-in-the-revolutionary-war/.